information warfare 1

New World Order - Total Enslavement

2006-06-14T20:47:00.000+02:00

the Great Seal of The United States of America

click here to view the Unauthorized Biography of Dick Cheney

The following was retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_(conspiracy)

New World Order (Novus Ordo Mundi) refers to a conspiracy theory in which a powerful and secretive group (Illuminati, Freemasons, etc.) has created a secret plan to eventually rule the world via a unitary (as opposed to federal) world government

Contents:

1 The Basics
2 Signs
3 Ideologies
4 Connections between theory and nationalism
5 Historical manipulations
6 Predicted socio-political changes
7 Other theories
8 Annuit Cœptis Novus Ordo Seclorum
9 References
10 See also
11 Conspiracist literature
12 References in fiction to the New World Order
13 External links

Anarcho-primitivism

2006-06-13T17:05:00.000+02:00

click here for: PRIMITIVISM.COM

the following was retrieved from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism

Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. Primitivists argue that the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. They advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of technology. There are however numerous other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems. Some, like Theodore Kaczynski, see only the Industrial Revolution as the problem, others point to various developments in history such as monotheism, writing, the use of metal tools, etc. The Aryan Anarchist Lala Hardayal claimed that the ideal social order existed in the legendary vedic period, where he claims there were no governors and no governed. He moved to America to promote what he considered ancient Aryan culture. Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization while some endorse it but do not consider themselves primitivists such as Wolfi Landstreicher. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state through "rewilding".

Contents:

1.Concepts
1.1 Civilization
1.2 A Critique of Symbolic Culture
1.3 The Domestication of Life
1.4 The Origins and Dynamics of Patriarchy
1.5 Division of Labor and Specialization
1.6 Rejection of Science
1.7 The Problem of Technology
1.8 Production and Industrialism
1.9 Beyond Leftism
1.10 Against Mass Society
1.11 Liberation and Organization
1.12 Revolution vs. Reform
1.13 Influences
1.14 Rewilding and Reconnection
1.15 Associations
2 Criticism
2.1 External links
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

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Concepts

Primitivists argue that prior to the advent of agriculture humans lived in small, nomadic bands which were socially, politically, and economically egalitarian. Being without hierarchy, these bands are sometimes viewed as embodying a precursor to anarchism.
John Moore writes that anarcho-primitivism seeks:
"to expose, challenge and abolish all the multiple forms of power that structure the individual, social relations, and interrelations with the natural world." [1]
Primitivists hold that as a result of agriculture, societies became increasingly beholden to technological processes and abstract power structures arising from the division of labour and hierarchism. Primitivists disagree over what degree of horticulture might be present in an anarchist society, with some arguing that permaculture could have a role but others advocating a strictly hunter-gatherer subsistence.
Despite its rejection of scientism, primitivism has drawn heavily on cultural anthropology and archaeology. Within the last half-century, societies once viewed as barbaric have been largely reevaluated by academics, many of whom now hold that early humans lived in relative peace and prosperity. For instance Frank Hole, an early-agriculture specialist, and Kent Flannery, a specialist in Mesoamerican civilization, have noted that, "No group on earth has more leisure time than hunters and gatherers, who spend it primarily on games, conversation and relaxing."(Kirkpatrick Sale, "Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision")
Scholars such as Karl Polanyi and Marshall Sahlins characterized primitive societies as gift economies with "goods valued for their utility or beauty rather than cost; commodities exchanged more on the basis of need than of exchange value; distribution to the society at large without regard to labor that members have invested; labor performed without the idea of a wage in return or individual benefit, indeed largely without the notion of 'work' at all." [2].
Other scholars and thinkers such as Paul Shepard, influenced by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, have written of the "evolutionary principle" which roughly states that a species removed from its natural habitat and behaviors will become pathological. Shepard has written at length on ways in which the disruption of man's natural "ontogeny" which developed through thousands of years of evolution in a foraging mode of existence has been disrupted due to a sedentary lifestyle caused by agriculture, [3].

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John Zerzan

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Civilization

Primitivists view civilization as the logic, institutions, and physical apparatus of domestication, control and domination. They focus primarily on the question of origins. Civilization is seen as the underlying problem or root of oppression, and it is believed that it needs to be dismantled or destroyed.
Primitivists describe the rise of civilization as the shift over the past 10,000 years from an existence within and deeply connected to the web of life, to one separated from and in control of the rest of life. They argue that prior to civilization there generally existed ample leisure time, considerable gender autonomy and equality, a non-destructive approach to the natural world, the absence of organized violence, no mediating or formal institutions, and strong health and robusticity. Primitivists state that civilization inaugurated warfare, the subjugation of women, population growth, drudge work, concepts of property, entrenched hierarchies, and virtually every known disease. They claim that civilization begins with and relies on an enforced renunciation of instinctual freedom and that it is impossible to reform away such a renunciation.
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A Critique of Symbolic Culture

Primitivists view the shift towards an almost exclusively symbolic culture as highly problematic, in the sense that it separates us from a direct interaction. Often the response to this questioning is, “So, you just want to grunt?" This might be the desire of a few, but typically the critique is a look at the problems inherent with a form of communication and comprehension that relies primarily on symbolic thought at the expense (and even exclusion) of other sensual and unmediated means. The emphasis on the symbolic is a movement from direct experience into mediated experience in the form of language, art, number, time, etc.
Primitivists argue that symbolic culture filters our entire perception through formal and informal symbols. It’s beyond just giving things names, but having an entire relationship to the world that comes through the lens of representation. It is debatable as to whether humans are “hard-wired” for symbolic thought or if it developed as a cultural change or adaptation, but, say primitivists, the symbolic mode of expression and understanding is limited and its over-dependence leads to objectification, alienation, and a tunnel vision of perception. Many primitivists promote and practice getting in touch with and rekindling dormant or underutilized methods of interaction and cognition, such as touch and smell, as well as experimenting with and developing unique and personal modes of comprehension and expression.
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The Domestication of Life

Domestication, according to primitivists, is the process that civilization uses to indoctrinate and control life according to its logic. The mechanisms of domestication are said to include: taming, breeding, genetically modifying, schooling, caging, intimidating, coercing, extorting, promising, governing, enslaving, terrorizing, murdering, etc. Primitivists say their movement and effects are examined and felt throughout society, enforced through various institutions, rituals, and customs.
Primitivists also describe it as the process by which previously nomadic human populations shift towards sedentary or settled existence through agriculture and animal husbandry. They claim that this kind of domestication demands a totalitarian relationship with both the land and the plants and animals being domesticated. They say that whereas in a state of wildness, all life shares and competes for resources, domestication destroys this balance. The domesticated landscape (e.g. pastoral lands/agricultural fields, and to a lesser degree - horticulture and gardening) is seen to necessitate the end of open sharing of the resources that formerly existed; where once “this was everyones’s,” it is now “mine.” Primitivists argue that this notion of ownership laid the foundation for social hierarchy as property and power emerged.
To primitivists domestication not only changes the ecology from a free to a totalitarian order, it enslaves the species that are domesticated.
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The Origins and Dynamics of Patriarchy

Primitivists hold that toward the beginning in the shift to civilization, an early product of domestication is patriarchy: the formalization of male domination and the development of institutions which reinforce it. Primitivists say that by creating false gender distinctions and divisions between men and women, civilization, again, creates an “other” that can be objectified, controlled, dominated, utilized, and commodified. They see this as running parallel to the domestication of plants for agriculture and animals for herding, in general dynamics, and also in the specifics like the control of reproduction. Primitivists say that as in other realms of social stratification, roles are assigned to women in order to establish a very rigid and predictable order, beneficial to hierarchy. They claim that woman came to be seen as property, no different than the crops in the field or the sheep in the pasture. Primitivists argue that ownership and absolute control, whether of land, plants, animals, slaves, children, or women, is part of the established dynamic of civilization.
Patriarchy, to a primitivist, demands the subjugation of the feminine and the usurpation of nature, propelling us toward total annihilation. They argue further that it defines power, control and dominion over wildness, freedom and life. They say that patriarchal conditioning dictates all of our interactions: with ourselves, our sexuality, our relationships to each other, and our relationship to nature. They claim it severely limits the spectrum of possible experience.
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Division of Labor and Specialization

Primitivists tend to see division of labor and specialization as fundamental and irreconcilable problems, decisive to social relationship within civilization. They see this disconnecting of the ability to care for ourselves and provide for our own needs as a technique of separation and dis-empowerment perpetuated by civilization. Specialization is seen as leading to inevitable inequalities of influence and undermining egalitarian relationships.
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Rejection of Science

Primitivists reject modern, mechanistic science as a method of understanding the world. Science, in the manner it is most often conducted today, is not considered neutral. It is seen as loaded with the motives and assumptions that come out of, and reinforce, civilization.
Modern science is understood as attempting to see the world as a collection of separate objects to be observed and understood. In order to accomplish this task the scientist must distance themselves emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel of information moving from the observed thing to the self, which is defined as not a part of that thing.
Primitivists argue that this is a mechanistic view tantamount to being the dominant religion of our time. As science seeks to deal only with the quantitative, primitivists suggest that it does not admit values or emotions. While science claims that only things that are reproducible, predictable and the same for all observers are real and important, primitivists say that reality itself is not reproducible, predictable or the same for all observers.
Science is seen by primitivists as only partially considering reality, a criticism made against modern science by many, that of its putative reductionism. Observability, objectifiability, quantifiability, predictability, controllability and uniformity are said to be the methods and goals of science. This, say primitivists, leads to the world view that everything should be objectified, quantified, controlled and in uniform with everything and everyone else. Primitivists also see science as promoting the idea that anomalous experience, anomalous ideas and anomalous people should be cast off or destroyed like imperfectly shaped machine components.
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The Problem of Technology

Primitivists reject modern technology completely. They see it as a complex system involving division of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation for the benefit of those who implement its process. They argue that the interface with and result of technology is always an alienated, mediated, and distorted reality. Technology too, just like science, is seen as not neutral. The values and goals of those who produce and control technology are believed to always be embedded within it.
Technology is held to be distinct from simple tools in many regards. A simple tool is considered a temporary usage of an element within our immediate surroundings used for a specific task. Tools are not viewed to involve complex systems which alienate the user from the act. Primitivists claim that implicit in technology is this separation, creating an unhealthy and mediated experience which leads to various forms of authority. Domination is said to increase every time a new “time-saving” technology is created, as primitivists claim it necessitates the construction of more technology to support, fuel, maintain and repair the original technology. It is argued by primitivists that this leads very rapidly to the establishment of a complex technological system that seems to have an existence independent of the humans who created it. Primitivists believe that this system methodically destroys, eliminates, or subordinates the natural world, constructing a world fit only for machines.
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Production and Industrialism

According to primitivists a key component of the modern techno-capitalist structure is industrialism, the mechanized system of production built on centralized power and the exploitation of people and nature. Industrialism cannot exist, they say, without genocide, ecocide, and colonialism. They further say that to maintain it, coercion, land evictions, forced labor, cultural destruction, assimilation, ecological devastation and global trade are accepted as necessary, even benign. Primitivists claim industrialism’s standardization of life objectifies and commodifies it, viewing all life as a potential resource. They see their critique of industrialism as a natural extension of the anarchist critique of the state because they see industrialism as inherently authoritarian.
The primitivist argument against industrialism is such: In order to maintain an industrial society, one must set out to conquer and colonize lands in order to acquire (generally) non-renewable resources to fuel and grease the machines. This colonialism is rationalized by racism, sexism, and cultural chauvinism. In the process of acquiring these resources, people must be forced off their land. And in order to make people work in the factories that produce the machines, they must be enslaved, made dependent, and otherwise subjected to the destructive, toxic, degrading industrial system.
Primitivists hold that Industrialism cannot exist without massive centralization and specialization. Furthermore, they hold that industrialism demands that resources be shipped from all over the globe in order to perpetuate its existence, and this globalism, they say, undermines local autonomy and self-sufficiency.
Finally primitivists contend that it is a mechanistic worldview that is behind industrialism and that this same world-view has justified slavery, exterminations and the subjugation of women.
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Beyond Leftism

Primitivists do not see themselves as part of the Left (see also post-left anarchy). Rather they view the socialist and liberal orientations as bankrupt. Primitivists argue that the Left has proven itself to be a monumental failure in its objectives. The Left, according to primitivists, is a general term and can roughly describe all socialist leanings (from social democrats and liberals to Maoists and Stalinists) which wish to re-socialize “the masses” into a more “progessive” agenda, often using coercive and manipulative approaches in order to create a false “unity” or the creation of political parties. While primitivists understand that the methods or extremes in implementation may differ, the overall push is seen as the same: the institution of a collectivized and monolithic world-view based on morality.
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Against Mass Society

Most anarchists and “revolutionaries" spend a significant portion of their time developing schemes and mechanisms for production, distribution, adjudication, and communication between large numbers of people; in other words, the functioning of a complex society. Primitivists do not accept the premise of global (or even regional) social, political, and economic coordination and interdependence, or the organization needed for their administration. They reject mass society for practical and philosophical reasons. First, they reject the inherent representation necessary for the functioning of situations outside the realm of direct experience (completely decentralized modes of existence). They do not wish to run society or organize a different society.
They want a completely different frame of reference. They want a world where each group is autonomous and decides on its own terms how to live, with all interactions based on affinity, free and open, and non-coercive. They want a life which they live, not one which is run.
According to primitivists mass society brutally collides not only with autonomy and the individual, but also with the earth. They see it as simply not sustainable (in terms of the resource extraction, transportation, and communication systems necessary for any global economic system) to continue on with, or to provide alternative plans for a mass society.
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Liberation and Organization

Primitivists argue that organizational models only provide us with more of the same. While it is recognized by some primitivists that there might be an occasional good intention, the organizational model is seen as coming from an inherently paternalistic and distrusting mindset which they hold is contradictory to anarchy. Primitivists believe that true relationships of affinity come from a deep understanding of one another through intimate need-based relationships of day-to-day life, not relationships based on organizations, ideologies, or abstract ideas. They say that the organizational model suppresses individual needs and desires for “the good of the collective” as it attempts to standardize both resistance and vision. From parties, to platforms, to federations, primitivists argue that as the scale of projects increase, the meaning and relevance they have for one’s own life decrease.
Rather than the familiar organizational model primitivists advocate for the use of informal, affinity-based associations that they claim tend to minimize alienation from decisions and processes, and reduce mediation between our desires and our actions.
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Revolution vs. Reform

As anarchists, primitivists are fundamentally opposed to government, and likewise, any sort of collaboration or mediation with the state (or any institution of hierarchy and control.) This position determines a certain continuity or direction of strategy, historically referred to as revolution. By revolution, primitivists mean the ongoing struggle to alter the social and political landscape in a fundamental way: for anarchists, this means its complete dismantling. The word “revolution” is seen as dependent on the position from which it is directed, as well as what would be termed “revolutionary” activity. Again, for anarchists, this is activity which is aimed at the complete dissolving of power.
Reform, on the other hand, is seen as entailing any activity or strategy aimed at adjusting, altering, or selectively maintaining elements of the current system, typically utilizing the methods or apparatus of that system. The goals and methods of revolution, it is argued, cannot be dictated by, nor performed within, the context of the system. For anarchists, revolution and reform invoke incompatible methods and aims, and despite certain approaches, do not exist on a continuum.
For primitivists, revolutionary activity questions, challenges, and works to dismantle the entire set-up or paradigm of civilization. Revolution is not seen as a far-off or distant singular event which we build towards or prepare people for, but instead, a life-way or practice of approaching situations.
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Influences

Anarchists contribute to an anti-authoritarian push, which challenges all power on a fundamental level, striving for truly egalitarian relationships and promoting mutual aid communities. Primitivists, however, extend ideas of non-domination to all of life, not just human life, going beyond the traditional anarchist's analysis. From anthropologists, primitivists are informed with a look at the origins of civilization, so as to understand what they are up against and how they got here, to help inform a change in direction. Inspired by the Luddites, primitivists rekindle an anti-technological/industrial direct action orientation. Insurrectionalists infuse a perspective which waits not for the fine-tuning of critique, but identify and spontaneously attack current institutions of civilization.
Primitivists claim they owe much to the Situationists, and their critique of the alienating commodity society. Deep ecology informs the primitivist perspective with an understanding that the well-being and flourishing of all life is linked to the awareness of the inherent worth and intrinsic value of the non-human world independent of use value. Primitivists see deep ecology’s appreciation for the richness and diversity of life contribute to the realization that the present human interference with the non-human world is coercive and excessive.
Bioregionalists bring the perspective of living within one’s bioregion, and being intimately connected to the land, water, climate, plants, animals, and general patterns of their bioregion. Ecofeminists have contributed to the comprehension of the roots, dynamics, manifestations, and reality of patriarchy, and its effect on the earth, women in particular, and humanity in general. Recently, the separation of humans from the earth (civilization) has probably been articulated most clearly and intensely by eco-feminists.
Primitivists have been profoundly influenced by the various indigenous cultures and earth-based peoples throughout history and those who still currently exist. While primitivists attempt to learn and incorporate sustainable techniques for survival and healthier ways of interacting with life, they see it as important not to flatten or generalize native peoples and their cultures, and to respect and attempt to understand their diversity without co-opting cultural identities and characteristics. Primitivists also feel that it is important to understand that all humans have come from earth-based peoples forcibly removed from our connections with the earth, and therefore have a place within anti-colonial struggles.
They are also inspired by the feral, those who have escaped domestication and have re-integrated with the wild. And, of course, the wild beings which make up the Earth. It is important to remember that, while many anarcho-primitivists draw influence from similar sources, anarcho-primitivism is something very personal to each who identify or connect with these ideas and actions.
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Rewilding and Reconnection

For most primitivist anarchists rewilding and reconnecting with the earth is a life project. They state that it should not be limited to intellectual comprehension or the practice of primitive skills, but instead, that it is a deep understanding of the pervasive ways in which we are domesticated, fractured, and dislocated from our selves, each other and the world. Rewilding is understood as having a physical component which involves reclaiming skills and developing methods for a sustainable co-existence, including how to feed, shelter and heal ourselves with the plants, animals and materials occurring naturally in our bioregions. It is also said to include the dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and infrastructure of civilization.
Rewilding is described as having an emotional component, which involves healing ourselves and each other from what are perceived as the 10,000 year-old wounds, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical and non-oppressive communities, and de-constructing the domesticating mindset in our social patterns. To the primitivist “rewilding includes prioritizing direct experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every dynamic and aspect of reality, connecting with our feral fury to defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands of years of patriarchal control and domestication. Rewilding is the process of becoming uncivilized.” (from the "What Is Green Anarchy" primer) [4].
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Associations

In the United States primitivism has been notably advocated by writer John Zerzan and to a lesser extent author Derrick Jensen. The primitivist movement has connections to radical environmentalism, gaining some attention due to the ideas of Theodore Kaczynski (also dubbed, "the Unabomber") following his luddite bombing campaign. Recently primitivism has been enthusiastically explored by Green Anarchy, Species Traitor, and occasionally Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Fifth Estate, and even CrimethInc..
During the 1990s the UK magazine Green Anarchist aligned itself with primitivism, although there are many green anarchists who are not primitivists.
Anti-civilization anarchists also organize groups in Spain, Israel, Turkey, Sweden and India.
Anarcho-Primitivism is associated with and has influenced the radical tendencies within Neo-Tribalism.
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Criticism

The earth has a population of more than 6.5 billion people. However, if everyone lived as a hunter-gather, according to critics, the earth would be able to support many fewer people. Critics are curious as to the fate of the other billions that will be left without food if such a way of life was adopted.
Critics note that recent research indicates that certain hunter-gatherer societies actually had higher incidences of violence than societies with a state.[5]. Other research also indicates that primitive societies like the !Kung were not as affluent as previously thought. The !Kung instead had a life expectancy of thirty years, high infant mortality, a workweek at least equal to that of today, and periodic starvation with marked decrease in body weight.
Other critics believe that solving social problems, e.g. oppression, torture, war, or disease would be more difficult without books, medical instruments (a form of technology), and the social structures of civilization.
Another major line of criticism stems from the fact that very few (if any) primitivist philosophers choose to live in primitive societies themselves, and often make use of many of the same forms of technology that they believe should be abandoned. Indeed, many primitivists live in quasi-collectivist communities within developed nations, which, in turn, greatly benefit from the healthcare and technological infrastructure of the surrounding "civilization."
Some posit that it would be implausible or even impossible for a world population of over 6 billion to adapt to social organizations limited to bands of 30-40 people. Even after a massive Nuclear holocaust it is hard for many to imagine that civilization would not quickly reorganize. This criticism against primitivism suggests that primitivism could only be attained temporarily, and under scenarios which most people would consider to be nightmarish dystopias.
Because some primitivists have extended their critique of symbolic culture to language itself, Georgetown University professor Mark Lance describes primitivism as "literally insane, for proper communication is necessary to create within the box a means to destroy the box." [6]
Some notable critics of primitivism include Michael Albert, Brian Sheppard, Andrew Flood, Stewrat Home and, especially, Murray Bookchin, as seen in his polemical work entitled "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism," as well as the conflict between his more traditionally socialist "Social Ecology" and the more radical "Deep Ecology" of many primitivists. Sheppard asserts that anarcho-primitivism is not a form of anarchism at all. In Anarchism Vs. Primitivism he says: "In recent decades, groups of quasi-religious mystics have begun equating the primitivism they advocate (rejection of science, rationality, and technology often lumped together under a blanket term "technology") with anarchism. In reality, the two have nothing to do with each other." Flood agrees with this assertion and points out that primitivism appears to clash with the fundamental goal of anarchism, the creation of a free mass society.[7]
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External links

A critique of primitivism, anarcho-primitivism and anti-civilisationism - anarchist criticism of primitivism
Primitivism text archive
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References

Zerzan, John (ed.) (2005). Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections, illus. R. L. Tubbesing, enl. ed., Los Angeles: Feral House. ISBN 0922915989.
Zerzan, John (1994). Future Primitive: and Other Essays. Brooklyn: Autonomedia. ISBN 1570270007.
Zerzan, John (2002). Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilisation. Los Angeles: Feral House. ISBN 092291575X.
Kaczynski, Ted [1995] (1996). The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future, 3rd ed., Berkeley: Jolly Roger Press. ISBN 0963420526.
Kaczynski, Ted (1999). "Ship of Fools", Binghamton, NY: OFF! Magazine (student zine at SUNY Binghamton).
Glendinning, Chellis (1994). My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. Shambhala. ISBN 087773996X.
Hardayal, Lala (1914). ''The Social Conquest of the Hindu Race and the Meaning of Equality.
Zerzan, John (2002). Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilisation. Los Angeles: Feral House. ISBN 092291575X.
Ellul, Jacques (1964). The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkinson, New York: Knopf.
Perlman, Fredy (1983). Against His-story, Against Leviathan!. Detroit: Black & Red.
Jensen, Derrick (2000). A Language Older Than Words. New York: Context Books. ISBN 1893956032.
Jensen, Derrick (2002). The Culture of Make Believe. New York: Context Books. ISBN 1893956288.
Moore, John. "A Primitivist Primer", London: Green Anarchist (magazine).
Quinn, Daniel (1992). Ishmael. New York: Bantam. ISBN 0553078755.
Green Anarchy: An Anti-Civilization Journal of Theory and Action
Species Traitor: An Insurrectionary Anarcho-Primitivist Journal
Disorderly Conduct (journal)
Fifth Estate: An Anti-Authoritarian Magazine of Ideas and Action
Barclay, Harold (1990). People without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy, rev. ed., Seattle: Left Bank Books. ISBN 0939306093.
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External links

Black and Green Network
Civilisation, Primitivism and anarchism
Coalition Against Civilization
Green Anarchy
The Green Anarchist Infoshop
Fimbulvinter - anarcho-primitivism in swedish
Is primitivism realistic? An anarchist reply to John Zerzan and others
Primitivism.com
re-pressed distribution
Libertarian Communist Library entries on Primitivism
A Primitivist Primer: What is Anarcho-Primitivism? by John Moore
ROAD Collective Ontario Anarchist Resource.
"What is anarcho-primitivism?" from the Anarchist FAQ – a critique of the ideology from an anarchist perspective
ZNet's Primitivism Debate, Michael Albert vs John Zerzan, Eric Blair and the Green Anarchy Collective
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism"

Categories: Anarchism /Cultural anthropology /Social philosophy

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The Future of Food - documentary film

2006-03-31T13:10:00.000+02:00

Retrieved from: http://thefutureoffood.com/

Click here to view trailer

The following was retrieved from: http://www.wired.com/

GMO - Food Foes Turn to Film

By Jason Silverman Jason Silverman | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Jul, 08, 2004 EDT

Last March, the food-safety organization GMO Free Mendocino did something no group had ever done: It ushered through a law banning genetically engineered crops and livestock.

It was a David-thrashes-Goliath victory. Opponents of the legislation, led by the agricultural trade group CropLife America, outspent the anti-GMO activists by a nearly 10-1 ratio. But GMO Free Mendocino had a secret weapon: a film, then a work in progress, called The Future of Food.

The new documentary, created by Deborah Koons Garcia, uses archival footage and interviews with farmers and agriculture experts to argue that GMO foods are jeopardizing our food safety. During the past 10 years, the film tells us, genetically engineered crops have infected our food supply and undermined cultivation methods that have been refined over thousands of years.

The Future of Food lays out a detailed case against genetically engineered crops. Exploring a gamut of issues from so-called suicide seeds to lax food-safety enforcement laws, and from the controversy over patented genes to infected cornfields, the film is a comprehensive and chilling example of anti-GMO rhetoric.

GMO Free Mendocino spokesman Doug Mosel described The Future of Food as a major factor in the passage of Measure H, which banned the use of GMO farming within Mendocino County, California.

"The Future of Food could be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of the genetically engineered food battle," Mosel said. The film is currently touring festivals and other events, including an upcoming screening in San Francisco.

Garcia, Jerry Garcia's third and final wife, has been interested in the ways plants can be mutated since childhood. At 15, she won a science fair award for an experiment involving irradiated plants, and she has followed the evolution of genetic engineering for years.

"My goal was to make a film that gave the average person a clear understanding of how genetic engineering works, from the cellular level to the global level," Garcia said. "I'm hoping this film can be a combination of Silent Spring and The Battle of Algiers. Once you see it you'll feel compelled to act, even if that means just changing the kind of food you eat."

Though The Future of Food is not intended as a two-sides-to-the-story analysis, Garcia said she requested interviews from representatives at Monsanto, the multinational seed and pesticide giant that is driving the genetically engineered food movement. She did not receive a response.

Perhaps Monsanto is trying to keep a low profile. The company has suffered a string of well-publicized setbacks to its genetically engineered crop initiatives in recent years, including closure of its GMO wheat project in May.

According to agriculture expert Chuck Benbrook, Monsanto and other biotech agriculture companies are "retrenching -- reducing their research, reducing projections for profits, watching the range of viable applications shrinking."

Benbrook served in the Carter and Reagan administrations before becoming executive director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences. In his various positions, he watched as biotech companies rushed products to market. The first GMO foods reached shelves in 1997.

Though scientists were initially supportive to the point of being myopic -- Benbrook described early reports from the National Academy as "unadulterated boosterism" -- biotech foods today look less promising than they did even a few years ago. According to Benbrook, genetic engineering has failed to solve the problems advocates hoped it would. And, he added, food-safety concerns remain unresolved.

"The biotech industry is beginning to recognize that there are lots of reasons why it's hard to move genes across boundaries," Benbrook said. "Scientists have found ways around the natural protections, but there are really good reasons for them being there, and we violate them at some cost."

For five-sixths of the problems that genetic engineering promises to address, Benbrook added, genetic solutions are not necessary.

GMO companies are also finding increased resistance on the legal front. In April, Vermont became the first state to require registration and labeling of genetically modified products. According to one anti-GMO site, nearly 100 towns in New England have approved some sort of anti-GMO legislation.

Since the Mendocino law was signed, Garcia said as many as a dozen other California municipalities have drawn up similar legislation.

"The Future of Food has already helped change policy," Garcia said. "I think it is possible to make California GE-free, and it's exciting to think that the film could have some role in that."

GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEEDS

2006-03-29T19:02:00.000+02:00

The following was retrieved from: http://www.banterminator.org/the_issues

Introduction to Terminator Technology

Terminator technology refers to plants that have been genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest – it is also called Genetic Use Restriction Technology or GURTS. Terminator technology was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the United States government to prevent farmers from saving and re-planting harvested seed. Terminator has not yet been commercialized or field-tested but tests are currently being conducted in greenhouses in the United States.

“Terminator is a direct assault on farmers and indigenous cultures and on food sovereignty. It threatens the well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest.”
- Rafael Alegría of Via Campesina, an organization representing over 10 million peasant farmers worldwide.

Terminator Technology: Suicide Seeds Are Back! Introduction and Background (pdf) ( html)

Terminator Technologie: Das Comeback des Suizid-Saatguts Hintergrund (pdf) (html)

Tecnologia Terminator: As Sementes Suicidas Estão de Volta! Antecedentes (pdf) (html)

Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURTs) is the “official” name for Terminator technology that is used at the United Nations and by scientists. It refers to a general category of technologies that, in their design, provide a mechanism to switch previously introduced genes on or off, using external inducers like chemicals or physical stimuli (e.g. heat shock). This mechanism allows for restricted use or performance of transgenes. There are two main categories of GURTs, namely trait-related or T-GURTs and variety-related or V-GURTs. Whilst T-GURTs aims to control the use of traits such as insect resistance, stress tolerance or production of nutrients, V-GURTs aims to control reproductive processes that will result in seed sterility, thus affecting the viability of the whole variety. (V-GURTs is a concept, with many different potential designs.) The ability to switch the GURTs mechanism on or off externally enables the producer to exercise control either over traits or the viability of seeds (Source: EcoNexus www.econexus.info)

The Ban Terminator Campaign

The following was retrieved from: http://www.banterminator.org/our_strategy

Purpose: The Ban Terminator Campaign seeks to promote government bans on Terminator technology at the national and international levels, and supports the efforts of civil society, farmers, Indigenous peoples and social movements to campaign against it.

Strategy: The international de facto moratorium on Terminator technology at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is under attack. Two upcoming meetings of the CBD where Terminator is on the agenda – the Working Group on Article 8 (j) in Granada, Spain January 23-27 and the 8th Conference of the Parties to the CBD in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil March 20-31 2006 – offer important opportunities to strengthen the moratorium. The build-up to these meetings is also an important opportunity to encourage governments to establish national prohibitions on Terminator technology – just as Brazil and India have done. Corporations will not stop efforts to commercialize Terminator until governments prohibit the technology.

Origins: The Ban Terminator Campaign was initiated in response to recent efforts by governments and corporations to push for Terminator field trials and commercialization. Despite widespread opposition, in February 2005, the Canadian government attempted to overturn the CBD’s international de facto moratorium on Terminator technology The Ban Terminator Campaign was formed in response, following discussions initiated by Canadian-based civil society organizations (ETC group, Inter Pares, National Farmers Union, and USC Canada).

History: In 1998, ETC group (then RAFI) discovered Terminator patents. In 1999, in response to the avalanche of public opposition, two of the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations, Monsanto and AstraZeneca (now Syngenta), publicly vowed not to commercialize Terminator seeds. In 2000, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a de facto moratorium on Terminator seeds. As a result, many people believed that the crisis had passed, and the issue faded from public view. Unfortunately, Terminator is still being developed and is now being heavily promoted. Click here to read Statements Against Terminator or see documents at www.etcgroup.org

Structure:

The Ban Terminator Campaign’s steering committee:

AS-PTA (Assessoria e Serviços a Projectos em Agricultura Alternativa) www.aspta.org.br
ETC Group (Action group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration) www.etcgroup.org
GRAIN www.grain.org
Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism www.ipcb.org
ITDG (Intermediate Technology Development Group) www.itdg.org
Pesticide Action Network – Asia and the Pacific www.panap.net
Third World Network www.twnside.org.sg , www.biosafety-info.net
Via Campesina www.viacampesina.org

Contact:

Ban Terminator
contact@banterminator.org
www.banterminator.org
Phone: 1 613 241 2267
Fax: 1 613 241 2506
431 Gilmour Street, Second Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K2P 0R5

The following was retrieved from: http://www.banterminator.org/news_updates/audio_and_video/terminator_on_trial

Terminator on Trial Videos

Videos from the Terminator on Trial event in Ottawa, 20th March 2005

Percy Schmeiser 2

Percy Schmeiser (the Canadian farmer who took on Monsanto after his crops were contaminated by their GM seed) asks what kind of a legacy we want to leave for future generations.

View movie

Percy Schmeiser 1

Percy Schmeiser discusses the potential effect of Terminator on removing farmers' rights and abilities to recover from blight and disease in crops.

View movie

Colleen Ross

Colleen Ross at the Terminator on Trial event addresses the cooption of publicly funded plant varieties by multinational seed companies.

View movie

Vandana Shiva 4

Dr Vandana Shiva discusses the health impacts of eating "dead food".

View movie

Vandana Shiva 3

Dr Vandana Shiva contrasts the prayer of farmers - for seed to always have life - to the prayer of the corporations pushing Terminator Technology.

View movie

Vandana Shiva 2

Dr Vandana Shiva talks about the impacts of releasing terminator into ecosystems.

View movie

Vandana Shiva 1

Dr Vandana Shiva at Terminator on Trial describes terminator as a "crime against nature".

View movie

The following was retrieved from: http://workingtv.com/percyschmeiser.html

Percy Schmeiser speaks in Vancouver:
Prairie Farmer vs. Corporate Giant

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Webcast of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, December 10, 2003 at the Vancouver Public Library.

Percy Schmeiser has been fighting lawsuits by Monsanto, a Bio Tech giant and major producer of Genetically Modified seeds, for several years. Still looking for justice, he takes his David versus Goliath appeal to the Supreme Court in January. Monsanto successfully sued him for patent infringement after “Roundup Ready” canola was found on his land — not because he planted it, but through seed cross-contamination.
He spoke to a standing-room only crowd in Vancouver . . .

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

2006-03-28T13:55:00.000+02:00

ANIMAL ABUSE WORLDWIDE

2006-03-25T12:43:00.000+01:00

Primate Abuse at Covance
(CLICK HERE TO VIEW)

Retrieved from: covancecruelty.com

Inside Covance U.S.

Introduction

PETA's investigator was hired by Covance as a technician and worked inside the company's primate testing lab in Vienna, Virginia, from April 26, 2004, to March 11, 2005. The investigator's video documentation inside the lab started on July 30, 2004, and what she documented-the terror, sadness, sickness, injuries, suffering, and deaths of monkeys from the wild and Covance's own breeding facilities—will leave even the staunchest supporter of animal testing ashamed and all good people clamoring for justice. It will also make it perfectly clear that government oversight of labs such as Covance is a farce.

At Covance, animal technicians called the head veterinarian "Mr. Let's Wait and See." The primate staff—even those who were, themselves, often cruel to the monkeys—complained repeatedly about a young monkey with a broken arm being left untreated in his cage for four days. Apparently, "Mr. Let's Wait and See," the head vet at Covance, didn't know what to do about the bone break, and so he waited for a junior veterinarian to return from her time off. The junior vet immediately ordered the animal euthanized as the break was too severe to repair. She discovered and disclosed that the head veterinarian had given the baby monkey a drug that had little more effect than that of an aspirin for his unimaginable pain.

Other Documented Horrors for Animals at Covance

Striking and choking "uncooperative" monkeys
Screaming curses at frightened, sick monkeys
Slamming monkeys into their cages after they've had dosing tubes rammed down their throats
Hosing down cages with monkeys still inside, soaking the animals
A loose monkey terrorized by a technician who slams cages into walls to scare the animal out of hiding
Monkeys with chronic rectal prolapses-painful protrusions of the intestines through the rectum-resulting from constant stress and diarrhea
Monkeys who died horribly in tests for a drug company-the veterinarian was forbidden to examine them or provide any treatment, including euthanasia
Small monkeys dosed with large tubes forced up their nostrils and down into their stomachs, causing choking, gagging, and daily bloody noses
Monkey self-mutilation resulting from Covance's failure to provide psychological enrichment and socialization
Injuries left untreated until they became necrotic
Nonstop blaring rock music

Training Terrorists

On her first day at the laboratory where she would work for the next 11 months, PETA’s investigator watched workers practicing gavaging monkeys—a procedure that can cause throat lacerations, gagging, and vomiting. She wrote: “All of the monkeys resisted and tried to hold onto their cages while screaming. ‘A’ took the plastic tubing and fed it down the monkey’s nose as she squirmed and squealed. Her eyes shifted from ‘A’ to the tubing being shoved up her nose. One monkey was so terrified that he vomited while ‘A’ was putting the tube in his nose. ‘R’ told ‘A’ to ‘keep going’ and ‘A’ continued to shove the tube up the monkey’s nose and down his throat while vomit was dripping off his face. Once the monkeys had seen the procedure done, they all became fearful. Several spun in their cages, one did continuous somersaults, and some hid in the back of their cages. One of the last monkeys squirmed while ‘A’ put the tube in his nose. Again, ‘R’ told ‘A’ to ‘keep going,’ so ‘A’ pushed the tubing further until there was blood dripping out of the monkey’s nose. ‘A’ had hit the monkey’s sinus cavity.” The last stop that day was the "post life" lab where the new employees were shown the "cups" room. "I was told that cups labeled with yellow tags were animals who were killed, while the numerous cups labeled with red tags were 'unexpected deaths.' We observed a technician take an animal's spinal cord and remove pieces to be analyzed under a microscope. He simply discarded the unneeded body parts into a plastic bag."

Within days of being hired, PETA's investigator and other trainees were shown a recent TV exposé of the company's German facility. An undercover investigator there had caught Covance workers screaming obscenities at terrified monkeys, roughly throwing them back into cages after conducting stress-filled and painful procedures, mocking them, and forcing them to dance to loud music. The trainees were told that Covance was trying to bring legal charges against those who took the video, and the trainer assured the new staff that what appeared on the tape might look cruel to a "regular person" but that the scenes were "typical" and only shocking to people who don't work with monkeys. The PETA investigator wrote in her log notes: "[Two] current employees said that you have to be dominant when trying to catch the monkeys because they do not want to be caught. [And the trainer] said that everyone probably dances to the music with the monkeys while holding them and that the monkeys enjoy it."

Instead of telling the new hires that they must never treat monkeys in that way, Covance excused the behavior. As our investigator would learn, neither supervisors nor those above them ever stopped the cruel treatment of the monkeys now caught on tape in its Northern Virginia facility by PETA.

Transported to Purgatory and Back Again to Hell

On October 8, 2004, PETA's investigator climbed into a van with other Covance employees and headed toward the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) with 20 monkeys in small cages. Covance staff had been "acclimating" these monkeys to restraint boxes for the past several weeks for this very day.

From the investigator's July 22, 2004, log notes:

"[J] and several other technicians were doing 'box acclimation' with the rhesus macaques tonight. The boxes will be used in the study that will irradiate the monkeys for [drug company name]. It is hard to explain the sight of these magnificent monkeys being restrained in these boxes. The monkeys wear collars that slip into a notch at the top of the box (the box is made of clear Plexiglas). Knobs are then used to tighten the collar in place and the monkey is forced back into the box. The monkeys' arms and legs are then tied and bound to the sides of the box and a Plexiglas plate is tightened around their torsos. It looks like a medieval torture device. Some of the monkeys thrashed and screamed-trying to free themselves from the box, while others went limp and their eyes seemed to glaze over as they stared into space in an attempt to block out the terrifying reality of what they were experiencing."

The day for irradiation arrives. The drug company is testing an anti-radiation drug, hoping to cash in on fears of nuclear terrorism just as many other companies are cashing in by conducting experiments, funded by the government, into bioterrorism and its possible treatments.

From the investigator's October 8, 2004, log notes:

"Today was the day that we took the [drug company name] rhesus monkeys to AFRRI to be radiated. In the morning, several of us came in and got the monkeys 'prepared.' I shaved the back of their legs ? as well as their femoral area. Some of the monkeys looked so horrified as I shaved all of their gorgeous hair off-not knowing what was going on or what was coming next. Each monkey was then weighed and put in their crate. The crates were extremely small—approximately 3 feet wide, 2 feet tall, and 2 feet deep, and this area was split in two so that two monkeys were actually transported in each box. The inside of the boxes was very dark with only a small metal area with holes poked in it on each side of the crate.

"After all the monkeys were loaded into their crates, they were taken downstairs and loaded onto a truck. The noise was deafening, and I'm sure the monkeys were scared to death. The monkeys were transported in the truck while we followed behind in a van.

"When we arrived at AFRRI, we all went through security clearance and they even checked our truck. The truck with the monkeys in it was pulled up to a loading dock. We took two monkeys at a time out of their crates and put them inside of the restraint boxes. They were then put on a dolly and carted around some hallways until we got to a room with large steel doors on one side. As I looked through the doors, there was an enormous open space which dropped approximately four stories below. At the bottom was a small, skinny rectangular-type pool with one small table across the middle. Two men came and took the monkeys from me and carted them to a small open elevator that was lowered down into the abyss. The men took the monkeys and placed them on the table above the pool, facing away from each other in their restraint boxes so that they had nothing to look at but this enormous deep hole.

"The men came back up into the office and shut the steel doors. There was a man sitting at a desk with a computer and several monitors. He showed me that you could see the monkeys down in the pit. Depending on the weight and body mass of the monkeys, they were radiated for different amounts of time, and a large rod rose out of the water and there was a loud machine sound. Each group of two was left alone for approximately five minutes inside this room, restrained, unable even to see their friend, with piercing noises and the large rod rising out of the water. From the fuzzy camera picture, I could see the looks of fear on the monkeys' faces and will never forget how scared and helpless they looked.

"The rhesus were brought back up and carted back to the truck and put in their boxes. At different intervals, they were pulled out of the boxes for either dosing or blood collection. When we were finally finished and made it back home, the monkeys had to have even more blood collected until they were finally left alone.

"I will never forget the experience of going to AFRRI and seeing these poor animals be irradiated. The fear on their faces through each of the phases of the day will never leave my mind—especially watching their little fearful faces on the TV screen as they were irradiated against their will, unable to do anything—not even move."

Cruel Tests for Profit

The "Grease Pit"

For one year, 32 monkeys were gavaged orally at Covance. The study was conducted for a major pharmaceutical company and was nicknamed "grease pit" by the staff because the test substance was thick and greasy. Every day for 365 days, the monkeys in the grease pit test had thick tubes shoved down their throats so the tarry substance could be delivered into their stomachs. Naturally the poor animals had to be torn out of their cages for this daily abuse and many tried as best they could to keep their mouths shut tight. But there was always the "bite bar" ...
From the investigator's log:

"I dosed grease pit today while J and T caught and R did the bite bar. A girl from the rodent department came in to watch some of the dosing. When one of the male monkeys, Ninja, would not open his mouth for dosing, R hit him in the face with the bite bar several times so hard it was audible, and she also used the bite bar to try and pry his mouth open. T told her, 'You're gonna kill him!' to which R responded, 'I'll ram it down his fucking throat.' As T caught the monkeys, he yelled at them, saying things like 'Dumb fuck,' 'Hold your fucking head up, dick,' and 'You little asshole.'"
On October 26, 2004, PETA's investigator was told by her coworker that over the weekend, J had aspirated a "grease-pit monkey" (put the dosing tube into the monkey's lung instead of his stomach) and that the technicians "held him upside-down and shook him" to see if they could get any of the slimy substance out of his lungs but "only bloody froth came out." It took the animal at least 45 minutes to die.
By January 20, 2005, the end of what was surely a long year of suffering for these poor animals was at hand. All of the grease pit monkeys were sedated and driven to another building in an unheated golf cart in freezing temperatures where they were bled to death in stainless steel sinks, their thighs cut open by the necropsy technicians and their body parts sorted.

Death or Nothing

On December 13, 2004, 10 cynomolgus monkeys were given the first dose of an unknown substance. The Covance technicians were told by the study director that the client expected deaths but our investigator was in disbelief over what happened during the following two hellish weeks. The monkeys were stuck inside large plastic restraint tubes and were dosed every day for 14 days by a 10-minute infusion into a leg vein. After having been infused with the substance, the monkeys were bled at five minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and one, two, four, six, eight, and 12 hours post-dose. Each time they were bled, the frightened and desperately sick animals were yanked from the cages and stuffed into the clear plastic body tubes. Within several hours of the first dose, monkey #23, in the high dose group, was ataxic—laboratory jargon for no motor coordination. The following day, both of the mid- and high-dose groups were ataxic, with monkey #22 hunched and inactive. By day 3, the technicians handling the dosing were told that the client does not want any veterinary requests entered. The technicians were allowed to enter the animals' suffering as "observations" into the computer system but they were not allowed to ask for veterinary care. Monkey #23 stopped using the leg into which the substance was infused and soon necrotic (dead) tissue surrounded the injection site. His leg was swollen all the way down to his foot. So they dosed him in his other leg which led to the same hideous suffering. The technicians were ordered to dose #23 and any other monkey whose legs became unusable, in his tail. This poor monkey's tail became necrotic. On December 17, monkey #22 went into convulsions while he was being dosed, and our investigator, against orders, informed the veterinarian—to no avail. They had to enter the convulsions into the computer system as an "observation." On December 21, 2004, according to our investigator's log notes, one of the female monkeys went into convulsions inside her restraint tube and another female began vomiting inside the tube where she was left for the entire 10-minute dosing and the five-minute blood draw. She was returned to her cage covered in vomit. Our investigator's coworker told her that K, the study director, did not come in at all over the weekend as he had promised to do, so our investigator went to speak with J, the toxicologist, to tell her the horrible condition of the monkeys. Nothing was done. The monkeys were killed two days after Christmas, except for #23, who was killed slightly earlier than the others because his legs were so necrotic.

In a conversation on January 3, 2005, the junior veterinarian at Covance told our investigator that the study director had asked her to look at the animals right before they were killed so that there would be a record of their having been looked at by a vet, but as for allowing technicians or veterinarians to ask for treatment during the 14 days, she said, "We weren't allowed to! All of those sheets that J [the toxicologist] sent—I was not allowed to look at those animals. It was either death or nothing."

Get Active:

Please take a moment to spread the word to compassionate friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family members.

Write to Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns using the automatic e-mail form.

Next>>

The Corporation - documentary film

2006-03-23T19:06:00.000+01:00

Retrieved from: Wikipedia /* other sources

The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film critical of the modern-day corporation, considering it as a class of person (as in US law it is understood to be) and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychologist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples.

Contents

1 Creators
2 Basic plot
3 Topics addressed
4 Interviews
5 Reviews
6 Topically related movies
7 External links

1. Creators

The film was written by Joel Bakan, and co-written and co-directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary has been displayed worldwide, on TV (sometimes in 3 parts) and is also available in DVD. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power is also the title of a book (ISBN 0-74324-744-2) written by Bakan during the filming of the documentary.

2. Basic plot

The film charts the development of the corporation as a legal entity from its genesis to unprecedented legal protection stemming from creative interpretation of the 14th amendment, that is from its origins as an institution chartered by governments to carry out specific public functions, to the rise of the vast modern institutions entitled to the legal rights of a "person." One central theme of the documentary is an attempt to assess the "personality" of the corporate "person" by using diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV; Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia Psychology Professor and FBI consultant, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath.

3. Topics addressed

Other topics addressed include the Business Plot - where in 1933, the popular General Smedley Butler was nearly implicated to lead a corporate coup against then US President Franklin Roosevelt, the tragedy of the commons, Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning people to beware of the rising Military-industrial complex, economic externalities, suppression of an investigative news story about Bovine Growth Hormone on a FOX News affiliate television station, and the Cochabamba protests of 2000 brought on by the privatization of Bolivia's municipal water supply by the Bechtel Corporation.

4. Interviews

The film also features interviews with prominent corporate critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore and Howard Zinn as well as opinions from company CEOs such as Ray Anderson (from the Interface carpet company), the conservative viewpoints of Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman, and think tanks advocating "free markets" such as the Fraser Institute. Interviews also feature Dr. Samuel Epstein with his involvement in the case against Monsanto using a harmful chemical called Posilac to induce more milk production in dairy cattle.

5. Reviews

* richarddirecttv, INDYMEDIA.ORG.UK: “The Corporation” presents a powerful history of how this monster came to run the world. In the US, corporations have been able to establish constitutional rights by claiming they are human individuals. If this were the case, this complex and fascinating film argues, it would be diagnosed a psychopath (...)" (Full Review)

* Richard James Havis, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.COM: "Some thorough research, a clear presentation and a nice knit with America's ongoing corporate scandals should prod uninformed viewers to think more deeply about the role of big business in the world (...)" (Full Review)

* Bill White, SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER: "A film as multifaceted and monolithic as its subject (...)" (Full Review)

* Pete Vonder Haar, FILM THREAT "Powerful, infuriating, and ultimately sobering (...)" (Full Review)

- The Economist says: "Unlike much of the soggy thinking peddled by too many anti-globalisers, “The Corporation” is a surprisingly rational and coherent attack on capitalism's most important institution (...)"(link)

* OTHER REVIEWS

6. Topically related movies

- Why We Fight (2005 film)
- Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

7. External Links

- The Corporation official movie website
- Interview with Joel Bakan
- Interview with Bakan and Achbar
- The Corporation at The Internet Movie Database
* Sundance Film Festival
- 2004 Sundance Film Festival
- Sundance Film Festival award winners
- Genie Award winning films
- Anti-corporate activism

ACTIVIST VIDEOS

2006-03-21T11:05:00.000+01:00

"LIBERATION"
(CLICK HERE TO VIEW)

"PREVAILING"
(CLICK HERE TO VIEW)

"WAR CRIMES"
(CLICK HERE TO VIEW)

14 DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM

2006-03-17T21:38:00.000+01:00

AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE

2006-03-16T13:39:00.000+01:00

Image retrieved from the exxonsecrets website (link), showing 2004 Exxon Sweepstakes winners, part of the Flash Application in the homepage

ExxonSecrets
by Jamais Cascio

retrieved from: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001900.html

Pulling Back the Curtain – Information and Knowledge Resources see all posts in this category

Confidential to those out there who want to make big money and don't care who or what gets hurt along the way: become a climate change "skeptic." There are quite a few well-funded institutions and corporations out there willing to spend quite a bit of cash in the desperate attempt to convince people that climate change isn't happening, if it is it isn't human caused, either way it will be beneficial, there's nothing we can do about it anyway, and anyone who tells you otherwise hates America, capitalism, and probably apple pie, too. These "skeptics" often have lofty or serious-sounding institutions behind them, although these institutions seem to be different every time. And the "skeptics" generally seem to get a lengthy hearing by people in economic and political power. Surely all of that is coincidence, of course.

Or not. Greenpeace, in coordination with CLEAR, the Clearninghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research, has put together ExxonSecrets: a powerful -- and, in a terriblisma kind of way, fun -- flash application/website listing the myriad connections between the dozens of organizations and hundreds of individuals wrapped up in the ongoing efforts to obfuscate and deny the abundant scientific evidence that the climate's in a real mess. Much to nobody's surprise, many of these organizations receive generous funding from ExxonMobil, by far the most obstinate and retrograde of the global oil companies when it comes to climate issues. Some of the organization and individual names will be familiar, others more obscure, but what's important are the almost incestuous relationships between industry, lobbyists and pseudo-academic "think tanks," each asserting independence but actually relying on the same tired claims (long-dismissed by real climate scientists) and biased analysis.

Receiving funding doesn't a priori mean bias, and if all ExxonSecrets did was list how much different organizations received from Exxon, it would be of only limited utility. But the site shows myriad small pieces of evidence -- membership in multiple organizations with strong carbon lobby connections, close relationships between "independent" analysts and oil industry execs, organizations which pop up and disappear as industry mouthpieces. These may not be sufficient to make one immediately dismiss the statements of many of those organizations and individuals listed, but they should lead one to treat such statements with a great deal of skepticism.

As this suggests, ExxonSecrets has a longer-term value beyond simply playing with the interlocking directorships. Like They Rule, it's a great tool for immediately reality-checking news reports. When you see an article quoting some research group or academic stating that science is "split" about climate change, or that global warming "remains unproven," enter their name(s) in ExxonSecrets -- there's a darn good chance they'll come up as being a fully-endowed member of the Exxonerati. ExxonSecrets is a useful cheat sheet for getting to know the usual suspects.

Posted at worldchanging, by Jamais Cascio at January 6, 2005 05:15 PM | TrackBack

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Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
By

ANDREW C. REVKIN

. Published: NY Times, June 8, 2005

Retrieved from: ExxonSecrets / NY Times

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.

The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.

A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, said yesterday that Mr. Cooney would not be available to comment. "We don't put Phil Cooney on the record," Ms. St. Martin said. "He's not a cleared spokesman."

In one instance in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, "Our Changing Planet," Mr. Cooney amplified the sense of uncertainty by adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."

In a section on the need for research into how warming might change water availability and flooding, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

Other White House officials said the changes made by Mr. Cooney were part of the normal interagency review that takes place on all documents related to global environmental change. Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, noted that one of the reports Mr. Cooney worked on, the administration's 10-year plan for climate research, was endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences. And Myron Ebell, who has long campaigned against limits on greenhouse gases as director of climate policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian group, said such editing was necessary for "consistency" in meshing programs with policy.

But critics said that while all administrations routinely vetted government reports, scientific content in such reports should be reviewed by scientists. Climate experts and representatives of environmental groups, when shown examples of the revisions, said they illustrated the significant if largely invisible influence of Mr. Cooney and other White House officials with ties to energy industries that have long fought greenhouse-gas restrictions.

In a memorandum sent last week to the top officials dealing with climate change at a dozen agencies, Mr. Piltz said the White House editing and other actions threatened to taint the government's $1.8 billion-a-year effort to clarify the causes and consequences of climate change.

"Each administration has a policy position on climate change," Mr. Piltz wrote. "But I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program."

A senior Environmental Protection Agency scientist who works on climate questions said the White House environmental council, where Mr. Cooney works, had offered valuable suggestions on reports from time to time. But the scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because all agency employees are forbidden to speak with reporters without clearance, said the kinds of changes made by Mr. Cooney had damaged morale. "I have colleagues in other agencies who express the same view, that it has somewhat of a chilling effect and has created a sense of frustration," he said.

Efforts by the Bush administration to highlight uncertainties in science pointing to human-caused warming have put the United States at odds with other nations and with scientific groups at home.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who met with President Bush at the White House yesterday, has been trying to persuade him to intensify United States efforts to curb greenhouse gases. Mr. Bush has called only for voluntary measures to slow growth in emissions through 2012.

Yesterday, saying their goal was to influence that meeting, the scientific academies of 11 countries, including those of the United States and Britain, released a joint letter saying, "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action."

The American Petroleum Institute, where Mr. Cooney worked before going to the White House, has long taken a sharply different view. Starting with the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty in 1997, it has promoted the idea that lingering uncertainties in climate science justify delaying restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases.

On learning of the White House revisions, representatives of some environmental groups said the effort to amplify uncertainties in the science was clearly intended to delay consideration of curbs on the gases, which remain an unavoidable byproduct of burning oil and coal.

"They've got three more years, and the only way to control this issue and do nothing about it is to muddy the science," said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a private group that has enlisted businesses in programs cutting emissions.

Mr. Cooney's alterations can cause clear shifts in meaning. For example, a sentence in the October 2002 draft of "Our Changing Planet" originally read, "Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change." In a neat, compact hand, Mr. Cooney modified the sentence to read, "Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change."

A document showing a similar pattern of changes is the 2003 "Strategic Plan for the United States Climate Change Science Program," a thick report describing the reorganization of government climate research that was requested by Mr. Bush in his first speech on the issue, in June 2001. The document was reviewed by an expert panel assembled in 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists largely endorsed the administration's research plan, but they warned that the administration's procedures for vetting reports on climate could result in excessive political interference with science.

Another political appointee who has played an influential role in adjusting language in government reports on climate science is Dr. Harlan L. Watson, the chief climate negotiator for the State Department, who has a doctorate in solid-state physics but has not done climate research.

In an Oct. 4, 2002 memo to James R. Mahoney, the head of the United States Climate Change Science Program and an appointee of Mr. Bush, Mr. Watson "strongly" recommended cutting boxes of text referring to the findings of a National Academy of Sciences panel on climate and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that periodically reviews research on human-caused climate change.

The boxes, he wrote, "do not include an appropriate recognition of the underlying uncertainties and the tentative nature of a number of the assertions."

While those changes were made nearly two years ago, recent statements by Dr. Watson indicate that the admnistration's position has not changed.

"We are still not convinced of the need to move forward quite so quickly," he told the BBC in London last month. "There is general agreement that there is a lot known, but also there is a lot to be known."(link)

ClimateScience.gov

NY Times - Readers' Options

Forum: The Environment

ExxonSecrets Sources:

"Earth Last," The American Prospect, 5/7/04
article by Chris Mooney
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7603

Oil, Gas and Energy Law Intelligence
http://www.gasandoil.com/ogel/authors/author_detail.asp?key=262

George C marshall website link to 2003 Soon Baliunas study pdf
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/136.pdf

Proxy Statement 2004, ExxonMobil Corporation, May 26th, 2004
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=1

ATOMIC HYPOCRISY

2006-03-10T16:28:00.000+01:00

Neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to take a high moral line on Iran's nuclear programme

Tony Benn
Wednesday November 30, 2005
The Guardian

Britain has played a leading role in the negotiations with Iran about its nuclear programme and the risk that it might lead to the development of an atomic bomb, and may well seek to take the matter to the UN security council.

Given that the prime minister himself is determined to upgrade Trident and appears to be committed to a new series of nuclear power stations, his position as the defender of the non-proliferation treaty is not very credible, and if we are to understand the depth of western hypocrisy on this question we should look back at the history, which has been conveniently forgotten

Thirty years ago, on January 7 1976, as secretary of state for energy I went for a long discussion with the Shah in his palace in Tehran, and much of the time was spent discussing the plans he had to develop a major nuclear-power programme in Iran.

I had been well briefed on his proposals by Dr Akbar Etemad of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, who had told me that he intended to build a 24 megawatt capacity by 1994, which was bigger than the programme Britain itself had at that time, and he expressed an interest in the centrifuges that are essential for reprocessing, while assuring me that he was anxious to avoid nuclear proliferation. My diary covering my talk to the Shah about the sources of his nuclear technology reveals that he told me that he was "getting it from the French and the Germans and might even get it from the Soviets - and why not?"

It was only a year later that Dr Walter Marshall of the Atomic Energy Authority, my own adviser, announced that he was also the Shah's adviser on nuclear policy, and had prepared a scheme under which the Shah would order the Westinghouse pressurised-water reactor (PWR) if Britain would do the same, and that Iran was prepared to put up the money - a plan that I was determined to fight. It was actually being suggested as part of this deal that Iran would become a 50% owner of our nuclear industry for the purpose of building the PWRs.

Marshall had, without any authority from me, apparently suggested that Britain abandon our advanced gas cooled reactors and order up to 20 PWRs, and I formed the impression that he took the view, as many in the nuclear industry did, that proliferation was inevitable and there was not much you could do about it. Indeed he almost said as much.

For all these reasons I was totally opposed to this whole idea, and what was most worrying to me was the virtual certainty that it would lead to nuclear proliferation and the development of atomic weapons by Iran. It was never approved. Sir Jack Rampton, my permanent secretary, who seemed to be as keen as Marshall on the adoption of the PWR, and who was directly consulted by the prime minister, was clearly pressing this approach, and Jim Callaghan himself wanted me to go along with it.

At a cabinet committee meeting held on May 4 1977, Jim, while expressing his concern about nuclear proliferation, argued that we should not reject the Iranian approach since he thought that either the Germans or the French would take it up.

An added complication arose when it turned out that since nuclear power was, under Euratom, seen by the Foreign Office as being within the legal competence of the European commission, the British government might be unable to take its own view.

Most astonishing of all, in the light of the present discussions, is that the problem of Iran developing such a huge nuclear capacity caused no problems for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help.

There could hardly be a clearer example of double standards than this, and it fits in with the arming of Saddam to attack Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's huge nuclear armoury, which is itself a breach of the non-proliferation treaty.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, were recently awarded the Nobel peace prize for their work on non-proliferation, but since that treaty provided that the nuclear-weapons states should negotiate their own disarmament agreement, which has not happened, it is clear that for them the NPT does not matter.

Now there is a proposal to report Iran to the UN and ElBaradei could find himself in the same position as was Hans Blix, the Iraq arms inspector who was used by Washington for its own purposes, with the US seeking a UN resolution to condemn Iran and then, if that fails, acting unilaterally using force, as in Iraq.

If the problems now being discussed can be dealt with in a practical way through the IAEA, there is a real chance of an agreed solution, and that is what we should be demanding since neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to take a high moral line.

As I am strongly opposed to nuclear weapons and civil nuclear power, these comments should not be taken as endorsing what Iran is doing; but Britain's past nuclear links with Iran should encourage us to be very cautious and oppose those whose arguments could be presented as justifying a case for war, which cannot be justified.

· Tony Benn was the secretary of state for energy from 1975-79

tony@tbenn.fsnet.co.uk

Special report
The nuclear industry

Useful links
British Energy
Department of Trade and Industry
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Greenpeace
Health and Safety Comission/Executive - Nuclear Safety Directorate
Come Clean - Weapons of Mass Destruction awareness programme
UK atomic energy authority
National Radiological Protection Board
Friends of the Earth
World Nuclear Association
World Nuclear Transport Institute

WHO SOWS THE SEEDS OF HATRED ?

2006-03-06T12:39:00.000+01:00

OPUS DEI AND CLERICAL FASCISM

2006-03-03T10:58:00.000+01:00

Saint Josemaría Escrivá

(Thursday, January 9, 1902 – Thursday, June 26, 1975), (also known as Jose María or Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albas, born José María Mariano Escriba Albas) was a Spanish Catholic priest and founder of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, popularly, Opus Dei. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II, who declared Saint Josemaria as "counted among the great witnesses of Christianity." (link)

Theologians Under Hitler

In the days after World War II, a convenient story was told of church leaders and ordinary Christians that defied the Nazis from the beginning. Recent research has uncovered a very different story. Rather than resisting, the greater part of the German church saw Hitler's rise in 1933 as an act of God's blessing, a new chapter in the story of God among the German people. (link)

The Crusaders' cross,
also known as the Jerusalem cross. This cross was the symbol of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, which existed for almost two hundred years after the First Crusade. The four smaller crosses are said to symbolize either the four books of the Gospel or the four directions in which the Word of Christ spread from Jerusalem. Alternately, all five crosses can symbolize the five wounds of Christ during the Passion. This symbol can be seen in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven, and is also used in the flag of Georgia. (link)

The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which has gone through several different varieties of a cross Or (gold) on an argent (silver) field, is a famous violation of or exception to the rule of tincture in heraldry, which prohibits the placement of metal on metal or colour on colour. It is one of the earliest known coats of arms. The crosses are Greek crosses, one of the many Byzantine influences on the kingdom. (link)

The Catholic Order of the Holy Sepulchre (formally Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) has a foundation myth that connects it with Godfrey of Bouillon or even Charlemagne. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia it is in historical reality a secular confraternity, which gradually grew up around the most central of the Christian holy places. As it was for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre that the crusades were organized, so for its defence were military orders instituted. (link)

1. Letter from Escriva to Franco (link)

In the following letter, Opus Dei founder, Escriva, congratulates Spanish dictator Francisco Franco on the union of church and state in Spain. According to Giles Tremlett [1], "Opus Dei's 84,000 members around the world deny [Escriva] actively supported Franco;" however, this document shows that at the very least Escriva admired Franco.

Opus Dei also denies that the organization has a political agenda, and claims that its members have complete freedom as well as personal responsibility for their actions. However, the following quote from Escriva's book The Way, which Alberto Moncada [2] describes as a summary of Escriva's "national catholicism," illustrates how difficult it would be for a member of Opus Dei to reconcile this personal freedom with his counsel:

"Nonsectarianism. Neutrality. Those old myths that always try to seem new. Have you ever bothered to think how absurd it is to leave one's catholicism aside on entering a university, or a professional association, or a scholarly meeting, or Congress, as if you were checking your hat at the door?"[3]

Letter from Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer
to Francisco Franco, May 23, 1958

The following letter, translated from Spanish (original Spanish text found here) was published in the January-February, 2001 issue of Razón Española (magazine title means Spanish Reason). Copies of this and other letters from Msgr. Escrivá de Balaguer to Franco are kept in the Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco (National Foundation of Francisco Franco) (Marqués de Urquijo, 28, 28008 Madrid, Spain). The originals belong to Generalísimo Franco’s only daughter, Carmen.

To his Excellency Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Head of State of Spain

Your Excellency:

I wish to add my sincerest personal congratulation to the many you have received on the occasion of the promulgation of the Fundamental Principles.

My forced absence from our homeland in service of God and souls, far from weakening my love for Spain, has, if it were possible, increased it. From the perspective of the eternal city of Rome, I have been able to see better than ever the beauty of that especially beloved daughter of the church which is my homeland, which the Lord has so often used as an instrument for the defense and propagation of the holy, Catholic faith in the world.

Although alien to any political activity, I cannot help but rejoice as a priest and Spaniard that the Chief of State’s authoritative voice should proclaim that, “The Spanish nation considers it a badge of honor to accept the law of God according to the one and true doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church, inseparable faith of the national conscience which will inspire its legislation.” It is in fidelity to our people’s Catholic tradition that the best guarantee of success in acts of government, the certainty of a just and lasting peace within the national community, as well as the divine blessing for those holding positions of authority, will always be found.

I ask God our Lord to bestow upon your Excellency with every sort felicity and impart abundant grace to carry out the grave mission entrusted to you.

Please accept, Excellency, the expression of my deepest personal esteem and be assured of my prayers for all your family.

Most devotedly yours in the Lord,
Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer
Rome, May 23, 1958

References:

[1] "Sainthood beckons for priest linked to Franco: Controversial founder of Opus Dei will becanonised tomorrow," by Giles Tremlett, Madrid, The Guardian, Saturday October 5, 2002.

[2] "Evolution of Opus Dei," by Alberto Moncada. This article was originally published in Spanish as "La Evolucion del Opus Dei en Espana" (Ponencia al VI Congreso Español de Sociología, A Coruña, 1999).

[3] The Way by Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei.

Posted April 24, 2004 - ODAN Opus Dei Awareness Network

2. Statement on the Canonization of Escrivá (link)

ODAN's Opposition to the Canonization of Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer
September 11, 2002

ODAN opposes the canonization of Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei. Based on the testimonies of thousands negatively affected by Opus Dei, and published evidence from various sources revealing the irregularities surrounding Escriva's beatification and canonization processes, ODAN strongly believes that canonizing Escriva would be a grave mistake which would produce irreparable harm to the Church and leave thousands vulnerable to the deceitful and manipulative practices of Opus Dei. Specific details and reasons for opposing Escriva's canonization follow:

Facts & Irregularities in the Escriva Canonization

The quotes and facts below are taken from Kenneth Woodward's article, "A Questionable Saint, Is Opus Dei's founder fit for canonization?" Newsweek, January 13, 1992; from the official Opus Dei website; from Kenneth Woodward in his book, "The Helpers of God: How the Catholic Church makes Its Saints" National Catholic Register World Notes May 10, 1992; from Kenneth Woodward's article "A Coming-Out Party in Rome, Opus Dei prepares to stand by its man," Newsweek, May 18 1992; from the Vatican website; and from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

1. Based on materials worked up by a team of Opus Dei priests, John Paul II declared Escriva "heroically virtuous" in April 1990.

2. In July 1991, a miraculous healing authenticated, in part, by Opus Dei doctors was attributed to Escriva's intercession.

3. There is no devil's advocate to systematically challenge a candidate's claim to holiness. Thus some Vatican officials said Opus Dei was able to use its influence to manipulate the church's saint-making system for the benefit of its founder.

4. Opus Dei's first prelate, Alvaro del Portillo, who was also Escriva's successor, was a consultor to several congregations and councils of the Holy See, such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for the Clergy, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. As a member of the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law, he also helped in the drafting of the current Code that eliminated the "devil's advocate," promulgated by John Paul II in 1983.

5. An Opus Dei member, Dr. Raffaello-Cortesini, a heart surgeon, headed the medical board that reviews potential miracles for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

6. Serious charges were brought that Opus Dei prevented critics of Escriva from testifying at church tribunals called to investigate his life. Opus Dei officials insist that 11 critics were heard among 92 witnesses. Several former members were refused a hearing. Among them: Maria del Carmen Tapia, Father Vladimir Feltzman and John Roche.

7. Escriva defended Adolf Hitler. He told Father Feltzman that "Hitler had been unjustly accused of killing 6 million Jews." "In fact he had killed only 4 million."

8. Even some Opus Dei sympathizers, like retired Cardinal Silvio Oddi who served the Vatican for decades in key posts, believe the push to make Escriva a Saint has done Opus Dei "more harm than good". Although bishops are reluctant to criticize Opus Dei openly, says Oddi, many are "very displeased" by the rush to judgment and see "no need for the immediate beatification of their founder."

9. Normally to assess potential saints the Vatican appoints "consultors" who come from the candidate's homeland. Curiously, eight of Escriva's nine judges were Italian - a sign say critics that the congregation wanted to avoid Spanish theologians, many of whom are known to oppose Opus Dei. Opus Dei officials argue that because Escriva was an international figure and lived in Rome, there was no need to have Spanish judges.

10. Opus Dei has refused to let outsiders see the material on which Escriva's "heroic virtues" were judged -- an unprecedented act of secrecy, say priests familiar with the process.

11. Opus Dei officials have claimed that Escriva's cause had been unanimously approved. However Newsweek has learned that two of the judges, Msgr. Luigi De Magistris, deputy head of the Vatican's Holy Penitentiary, and Msgr. Justo Fernandez Alonso, rector of the Spanish National Church in Rome, did not approve the cause. In fact, one of the dissenters reportedly wrote that beatifying Escriva could cause the church "grave public scandal."

12. Under Pope Paul VI, Opus Dei was suspect. Vatican documents show that Paul worried that Opus Dei priests in the Vatican were leaking confidential decisions to Escriva.

13. John Paul II has increased the number of Opus Dei bishops . . . (there were only 4 before, all in Latin America) and granted Opus its own Pontifical "atheneum" in Rome despite objections from the rectors of the Church's established pontifical universities.

14. In 1982 John Paul II awarded Opus Dei a unique status as "personal prelature" which means its clerical and lay members take spiritual direction from their own prelate in Rome and not like other Catholics from their local bishop.

15. Opus Dei's real power is inside the Vatican bureaucracy . . .several ranking cardinals and at least one of the pope's personal secretaries, Father Stanislaw Dziwisz from Cracow are either [Opus Dei] "cooperators" or like the Pope himself, strong sympathizers.

16. Officials who supervise the media-conscious pope's liaisons with television are members of Opus Dei.

17. Officials of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints not only gave the cause top priority but, as the official positio on Escriva shows, they also bent rules to exclude damaging evidence about Escriva's character and commitment to the church.

18. The positio claims that the volatile Escriva lost his temper only once, yet many former members who knew him will insist he was routinely abusive of anyone suspected of being an enemy of Opus Dei, including Pope John XXIII and Paul VI. Former numerary Maria del Carmen Tapia relates in her book Beyond the Threshold: A Life in Opus Dei that Escriva routinely lost his temper, and that as secretary in charge of writing down his words and actions, she was not allowed to right down anything negative that she witnessed. She herself was subjected to abusive words from Escriva, who called her the most filthy names, e.g. WHORE, SOW, PIG, and then screamed during this meeting with both men and women present, that someone should "pull down her panties.... and give her a spanking," referring to a fellow numerary woman who had assisted Tapia by mailing letters for her. Regarding this statement, a supporter of ODAN wrote the following: "This is the most bizarre and perverted talk coming from anyone, man or woman, but for a man to say this to an adult woman...for a priest to use this language and make this statement to a woman; for a saint to make this statement, completely perverts not only the rules of civilized behavior, but sanctity itself. There is no excuse for this conduct, no excuse at all. This, in and of itself, belies his sanctity."

19. A Vatican source said, contrary to established procedure, no published writings critical of Escriva were included in the documents given to the judges of his cause; nor did the congregation investigate Escriva's celebrated conflicts with the Jesuits, reports of his pro-fascist leanings and Opus Dei's involvement with the Franco government.

20. 40% of the testimony came from just two men, (Alvaro) Portillo (deceased Opus Dei prelate and Escriva's successor) and his assistant Father Javier Echevarria, (current Opus Dei prelate).

21. Although 1,300 bishops and cardinals from all over the world had written to the Vatican giving positive statements on the Opus Dei founder, only 128 of them had actually met him in person.

22. According to [Woodward's] research, Opus Dei members allegedly have put hundreds of bishops under financial pressure in order to have them send positive reports about Escriva to the Vatican. Especially in the Third World, bishops were allegedly told that financial contributions from Opus Dei might be in jeopardy if they did not answer the request for positive testimony.

23. The "devil's advocate" that had been part of the canonization process before 1983 was replaced by a "relator"; thus the door was open for the rapid canonization of Escriva. (Note that the current Opus Dei prelate at the time, Portillo, was part of the committee that eliminated the devil's advocate.) In the past, it was the job of the devil's advocate to ask "why shouldn't this person be canonized?"

Feedback from ODAN supporters:
(Opinions held by the persons below do not necessarily reflect the views of ODAN, its officers or Board of Directors.)

Joseph I. B. Gonzales, Former numerary, six years

The problem is not the man. It is the institutionalization of the man.

My real concern is that his faults--his harshness, duplicity, or immoderation, for example--should by the fact of canonization render these traits dubiously normative, not only for Opus Dei but for all Catholics as well.

I hope that now that Josemaria Escriva is canonized, his life and the organization he founded will be opened up to the critical perspective that time and reflection by necessity lends to the fair understanding of the lives of the saints. At this point we may perhaps begin to acknowledge the glaring reality of his defects as well as their potentially damaging influence, just as today we easily recognize the vindictiveness of St. Jerome, the rigorism of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, or the neuroticism of St. Therese of Lisieux.

Joseph Gonzales has written the Vocation Trap for the odan website.

Dr. John Roche, Linacre College, Oxford

"I am concerned about the harm that the canonization of Josemaria Escriva will do to the reputation of the whole process of beatification and canonization."

To read Dr. Roche's personal testimony of his experience as a numerary in Opus Dei, please read his True Story, "The Inner World of Opus Dei."

John Roche has also added the following points to the list of Facts and Irregularities in the Canonization of Monsignor Escriva:

1. Words of Monsignor Escriva

"... as Jesus received his doctrine from the Father, so my doctrine is not mine but comes from God and so not a jot or tittle shall ever be changed" (Cronica);

"I will pass away, and those who come afterwards will look at you with envy as if you were a relic" (Cronica i, 1971);

". . . when I think of this divine predilection, I feel ashamed" (Cronica i, 1971);

"As we come to know the Work ... not finding other more expressive words of love, perhaps we had to have recourse to scripture: tota pulchra est, amica mea, et macula non est in te (Song of Songs 4:7) ... the Work is tota pulchra ... this wonderful jewel that men admire" (Cronica v, 1960);

2. Words about Monsignor Escriva, from the internal magazine, Cronica, while he still lived

"The heritage of heaven comes to us through the Father" (Cronica i, 1961);

" ... we will bless the Lord ... because He chose our Father as the firm base for a Work projected through all the length and breadth of time" (Cronica i, 1971);

"God's grace prepared the priestly soul of our Father, making it to the measure of Christ's heart, that is open to the multitude that our Lord wanted to call to his Work with the passing of time, and even to all humanity" (Cronica i, 1971);

3. Facts about the Founder

L. Carandell, Vida y milagros de monsenor Escriva ... (Barcelona, 1975), 62-67. On 24 January 1968 Mgr. Escriva solicited the title 'Marquis of Peralta' claiming that there was a family connection. He was granted the title. At the same time his brother, Santiago, solicited the title 'Baron of San Felipe'

4. Testimony of former members

During the period 1959-1973, while I was a member of Opus Dei, it was frequently stated publicly at get-togethers of members of Opus Dei, that Monsignor Escriva had stated often that places where important events happened to him during the early years of Opus Dei would become centers of international pilgrimage -- John Roche

In July 1973, in Galway, Ireland, Fr Daniel Cummings, the then Procurator-General of Opus Dei informed me the Monsignor Escriva was divinely inspired to found Opus Dei, that he could not err in matters of the spirit of opus Dei, and that, therefore, as a condition of membership I must believe in that Divine inspiration -- John Roche

"On one occasion the Father was given the news that ... an old priest ... of Opus Dei ... had a severe haemorrhage and was near to death. Monsignor Escriva replied that this son of his lacked supernatural outlook, that he wished to go outside without wearing his cassock" -- Maria Angustias Moreno, El Opus Dei, 1993, 57.

Other comments about the canonization

Kenneth L. Woodward, Newsweek New York, NY

Fair to Opus Dei? Letter to the Editor of First Things, 61, March 1996, 2-7

I am pleased that Richard John Neuhaus ("The Work of God," November 1995) finds me "often fair-minded," though I suspect that is only when my views mirror his -- as they often do. That he detects a "long-standing hostility to Opus Dei" is not quite fair-minded of Father Neuhaus. My writing about Opus Dei has focused almost entirely on the beatification of its founder, not the organization itself. On this point, the only fair-minded conclusion I can reach, given the evidence of the positio itself and interviews with people in Rome involved in the process, is that Opus Dei subverted the canonization process to get its man beatified. In a word, it was a scandal -- from the conduct of the tribunals through the writing of the positio to the high-handed treatment of the experts picked to judge the cause. That Newsweek caught Opus Dei officials making claims that were not true is a matter of record. Escriva may have been a saint -- who am I to judge? but you could never tell from the way his cause was handled. Then, too, there is the matter of the banality of his writings, especially the axioms. Not the sort of stuff, I think, to build a spiritual community around. As for the organization itself, I'm sure it meets the needs of some Catholics. But as a parent, I am naturally inclined to worry about its methods and to take more seriously than does Father Neuhaus the complaints of those who feel they have lost a child to the organization. I, too, thought Jim Martin did a good job in his America piece, and am sorry only that so many folks felt they could not speak on the record. Whatever else it does, Opus Dei strikes fear in the timid and the mitered. I've met some likable people in Opus Dei but I'd hate to have my daughter marry one. To be fair-minded, I wouldn't want her to wed a Jesuit either, though I hope she'd ask one to say the nuptial mass.

Kenneth Woodward is the author of Making Saints, How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn't, and Why, Simon and Schuster, 1990, in which he writes about Opus Dei and Escriva's beatification on pp. 383-389. One former numerary testifies that this book is on Opus Dei's Index of Forbidden Books, with the most restricted classification.

Revised June 20, 2005.

3. Clerical fascism (link)

Retrieved from Wikipedia

Clerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition. The term has been used to describe organisations and movements that combine religious elements with fascism, support by religious organisations for fascism, or fascist regimes in which clergy play a leading role. For Catholic clerical fascism, the term Catholic integralism is sometimes used, though Catholic integralism does not necessarily go together with fascism.

Contents

1. Examples of clerical fascism

Examples of dictatorships or political movements involving elements of clerical fascism include those of Antonio Salazar in Portugal, Maurice Duplessis of Quebec, Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria, Jozef Tiso in Slovakia, Ante Pavelic and the Ustashe in Croatia, Miklos Horthy in Hungary, the Iron Guard movement in Romania, the Rexists in Belgium and the government of Vichy France. The regime of Francisco Franco Bahamonde in Spain had nacionalcatolicismo as part of its ideology. It has been described by some as clerical fascist, especially after the decline in influence of the Falange beginning in the mid-1940s. With the exception of the Croatian Ustashe movement, scholars debate which other examples in this list should be dubbed, without reservation, clerical fascist.

Some scholars consider certain contemporary movements to be forms of clerical fascism, including Christian Identity and possibly Christian Reconstructionism in the United States; some militant forms of politicized Islamic fundamentalism; and militant Hindu nationalism in India (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh / Bharatiya Janata Party)

2. Quote

"Christianity and Democracy are inevitably enemies" Rousas John Rushdoony [1]

3. See also

4. Further reading

Randolph L. Braham and Scott Miller, The Nazis Last Victims: The Holocaust in Hungary (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, [1998] 2002). (ISBN 0814327370)

Leon Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991). (ISBN 0080410243)

Nicholas M. Nagy–Talavera, The Green Shirts and the Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Romania (Iaşi and Oxford: The Center for Romanian Studies, 2001). (ISBN 9739432115)

Charles Bloomberg and Saul Dubow, eds., Christian–Nationalism and the Rise of the Afrikaner Broederbond in South Africa, 1918–48 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). (ISBN 0253312353)

Walid Phares, Lebanese Christian Nationalism: The Rise and Fall of an Ethnic Resistance (Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner, 1995). (ISBN 1555875351)

Ainslie T. Embree, ‘The Function of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: To Define the Hindu Nation’, in Accounting for Fundamentalisms, The Fundamentalism Project 4, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 617–652. (ISBN 0226508854)

Partha Banerjee, In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and BJP of India (Delhi: Ajanta, 1998). (ISBN 8120205042)

Walter K. Andersen. ‘Bharatiya Janata Party: Searching for the Hindu Nationalist Face’, In The New Politics of the Right: Neo–Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, ed. Hans–Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), pp. 219–232. (ISBN 0312211341 or ISBN 0312213387)

Mark Juergensmeyer. The New Cold War?: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). (ISBN 0520086511)

5. Vatican policy

Anthony Rhodes, The Vatican in the Age of Dictators 1922–1945 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973). (ISBN 0340023943)
Michael Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) (ISBN 0253337259)
Livia Rothkirchen, ‘Vatican Policy and the ‘Jewish Problem’ in Independent Slovakia (1939–1945)’ in Michael R. Marrus (ed.),The Nazi Holocaust 3, section 8, Bystanders to the Holocaust (Wesport: Meckler, 1989), pp. 1306–1332. (ISBN 0887362559 or ISBN 0887362567)

4. Christian fascism (link)

Retrieved from Wikipedia

Christian fascism is a term used by some to describe what they see as totalitarian fascist politics in the contemporary Christian right, primarily in the United States.

For example, the Reverend Rich Lang of the Trinity United Methodist Church of Seattle, gave a sermon titled George Bush and the Rise of Christian Fascism in which he said "I want to flesh out the ideology of the Christian Fascism that Mr. Bush articulates. It is a form of Christianity that is the mirror opposite of what Jesus embodied. It is, indeed, the materialization of the spirit of antichrist: a perversion of Christian faith and practice...".

Some who use the term Christian fascism do not describe an existing state of fascism, but rather an emerging proto-fascism, and warn that action is needed to stop the possible emergence of a theocratic fascist state.

Critics of the term "Christian fascism" dismiss it as hyperbolic, and an "ill-advised attack on conservative Christians" [1]

See also

Clerical fascism, on the role of Christianity in European fascist movements between the world wars
Nazism, on the role of Christianity in the German Nazi movements
Dominionism, Dominion theology, and Christian Reconstructionism on claims of fascistic tendencies in contemporary Christian Right movements and groups
Christian Identity, on the militant right-wing movement linked by some to Neo-Nazi ideology.
Theocracy
Islamofascism

External links

ANCIENT FORESTS

2006-03-02T21:26:00.000+01:00

CRYPTO-FASCISM

2006-02-22T15:06:00.000+01:00

Three Australian soldiers in tin hats, middle man looking through an anti-aircraft gunsight (link)

The United Nations was the second multipurpose international organization established in the 20th century that was worldwide in scope and membership. Its predecessor, the League of Nations, was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and disbanded in 1946 (link)

retrieved from Wikipedia (link):

Crypto-fascism is when a party or group secretly adheres to the doctrines of fascism while attempting to disguise it as another political movement. The term is in a similar vein to crypto-Judaism or crypto-Christianity, referring to the secret practice of one faith while adhering to another religion publicly.

The term is mainly credited to Gore Vidal. During a television interview during the chaos of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Vidal described William F. Buckley, Jr. as a "crypto-Nazi" and later corrected himself as meaning to describe him as a "crypto-fascist". The term has been used frequently in Gore Vidal's literature and by others, including Vidal's adherents.

William F. Buckley's famous response to the term was, "Now, listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face." This is according to several sources, including Esquire Magazine at the time.

Revival

In America, the term crypto-fascist has been revived by some critics to describe the neoconservative movement, especially in reference to various national security measures taken after the September 11th attacks. Many neoconservatives consider the term offensive, and some have even called it hate speech.

links:

Political Animals: Vidal, Buckley and the ’68 Conventions - Page dedicated to the debate in which the infamous crypto-Nazi statement was made by Gore Vidal. Sound files available.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism"

List of fascists: This is a list of persons who self-identify as Fascists or a variant (e.g., National Socialists,Rexists, Falangists, etc.) and who have made major contributions to this ideology, eitherliterarily, politically or militarily. It is organised by country or region.

Corporatism: Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative power is given to civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, and professional groups. Unlike pluralism, in which many groups must compete for control of the state, in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process. These corporatist assemblies are not the same as contemporary business corporations or incorporated groups.

The word "corporatism" is derived from the Latin word for body, corpus. This original meaning was not connected with the specific notion of a business corporation, but rather a general reference to anything collected as a body. Its usage reflects medieval European concepts of a whole society in which the various components each play a part in the life of the society, just as the various parts of the body serve specific roles in the life of a body. According to various theorists, corporatism was an attempt to create a "modern" version of feudalism by merging the "corporate" interests with those of the state. (Also see neofeudalism.)

Political scientists may also use the term corporatism to describe a practice whereby anauthoritarian state, through the process of licensing and regulating officially-incorporatedsocial, religious, economic, or popular organizations, effectively co-opts their leadership or circumscribes their ability to challenge state authority by establishing the state as the source of their legitimacy. This usage is particularly common in the area of East Asia studies, and is sometimes also referred to as state corporatism. In Italian Fascism, this non-elected form of state 'officializing' of every interest into the state was professed to better circumvent the marginalization of singular interests as would happen by the unilateral end condition inherent in the democractic voting process. Which would better instead recognize or 'incorporate' every divergent interest as it stands alone into the state "organically", thus being the inspiration behind their use of the term Totalitarian, perceivable to them as not meaning a coercive system but described distinctly as without coercion in the 1932 Doctrine of Fascism as thus; "…(The state) is not simply a mechanism which limits the sphere of the supposed liberties of the individual…" & "…Neither has the Fascist conception of authority anything in common with that of a police ridden State…" but rather clearly connoting "…Far from crushing the individual, the Fascist State multiplies his energies, just as in a regiment a soldier is not diminished but multiplied by the number of his fellow soldiers…"

Contemporary popular usage of the term is more pejorative, emphasizing the role of businesscorporations in government decision-making at the expense of the public. The power of business to affect government legislation through lobbying and other avenues of influence in order to promote their interests is usually seen as detrimental to those of the public. In this respect, corporatism may be characterized as an extreme form of regulatory capture, and is also termed corporatocracy. If there is substantial military-corporate collaboration it is often called militarism or the military-industrial complex.

Some contemporary political scientists and sociologists use the term neo-corporatism to describe a process of bargaining between labor, capital, and government identified as occurring in some small, open economies (particularly in Europe) as a means of distinguishing their observations from popular pejorative usage and to highlight ties to classical theories.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN AND THE NORWEGIAN ROCKET INCIDENT

2006-02-09T20:23:00.000+01:00

The Norwegian Rocket Incident refers to a few minutes of post-Cold War nuclear tension that took place on January 25, 1995. The incident started when a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the northwest coast of Norway. The rocket, which carried equipment to study the aurora borealis over Svalbard, flew on a high northbound trajectory eventually reaching an altitude of 1,453 km (908 miles). As the rocket climbed, it was detected by the Olenegorsk early-warning radar station in Russia. To the radar operators, the rocket appeared similar in speed and flight pattern to a U.S. submarine-launched Trident missile. Russian President Boris Yeltsin was notified immediately and the "nuclear briefcases" used to authorize nuclear launch were automatically activated. Russian doctrine reportedly allowed Yeltsin ten minutes from the time of detection to decide on a course of action. Russian observers were quickly able to determine that the rocket was heading away from Russian airspace and was not a threat. Reports differ greatly as to whether or not Yeltsin came close to authorizing an attack. The rocket fell to earth as planned near Spitzbergen 24 minutes after launch.

The Norwegian and American scientists had notified 30 countries including Russia of their intention to launch a rocket but the information may not have been passed on to the radar technicians.

References

* Pry, Peter Vincent, War Scare

It should be noted that no warning was given to the populace that there was any problem. It was reported in the news over a week after the incident.

External links

* A Close Call, the Norwegien Rocket Incident
* False Alarms on the Nuclear Front

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Rocket_Incident"

Yeltsin's alcoholism (link)

According to numerous reports, Yeltsin was a heavy drinker. Moreover, his alcoholism played a role in significant decisions that had effect on Russia and the whole world.

* In 1989, Yeltsin went to the USA to give a series of speeches on social and political life in the Soviet Union. That trip was described by a scandalous publication in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The article reported that Yeltsin often appeared drunk in public. The article was reprinted by Pravda.

* According to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, president Bill Clinton was exposed to Yeltsin's alcoholism in their first phone call when Yeltsin called to congratulate him on Inauguration Day in 1993. Yeltsin was drunk. He was drunk again during the first summit meeting they had with Clinton in Vancouver. Talbott recalls that Yeltsin was so drunk when he arrived in the airport in September 1994 that he could barely get off the plane. The same night Yeltsin was staggering around in his underpants shouting for pizza. According to Talbott, that was a huge problem, and they did their best not to add to the public embarrassment. Phone calls to Yeltsin had to be timed to increase the probability to get him sober. During the Kosovo bombing, Yeltsin, who was obviously drunk, suggested that he and Clinton meet on a submarine.

* The portrayal of Yeltsin as a drunk in TV show Kukly by Victor Shenderovich has led to a criminal investigation, which was later dropped.

* Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist, commented in The Moscow Times on April 13, 1999:

"I have seen President Boris Yeltsin drunk and I'm pretty sure I have seen him sober, but unless he does something obvious like singing or falling over, it takes a while to decide: Both his body language and his speech patterns tend to blur the issue."

External links

CNN Cold War - Profile: Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin

20 MISHAPS THAT MIGHT HAVE STARTED ACCIDENTAL NUCLEAR WAR

2006-02-09T16:18:00.000+01:00

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

by Alan F. Philips, M.D. (link)

Ever since the two adversaries in the Cold War, the U.S.A. an the U.S.S.R., realized that their nuclear arsenals were sufficient to do disastrous damage to both countries at short notice, the leaders and the military commanders have thought about the possibility of a nuclear war starting without their intention or as a result of a false alarm. Increasingly elaborate accessories have been incorporated in nuclear weapons and their delivery systems to minimize the risk of unauthorized or accidental launch or detonation. A most innovative action was the establishment of the "hot line" between Washington and Moscow in 1963 to reduce the risk of misunderstanding between the supreme commanders.

Despite all precautions, the possibility of an inadvertent war due to an unpredicted sequence of events remained as a deadly threat to both countries and to the world. That is the reason I am prepared to spend the rest of my life working for abolition of nuclear weapons.

One way a war could start is a false alarm via one of the warning systems, followed by an increased level of nuclear forces readiness while the validity of the information was being checked. This action would be detected by the other side, and they would take appropriate action; detection of the response would tend to confirm the original false alarm; and so on to disaster. A similar sequence could result from an accidental nuclear explosion anywhere. The risk of such a sequence developing would be increased if it happened during a period of increased international tension.

On the American side many "false alarms" and significant accidents have been listed , ranging from trivial to very serious, during the Cold War . Probably many remain unknown to the public and the research community because of individuals' desire to avoid blame and maintain the good reputation of their unit or command. No doubt there have been as many mishaps on the Soviet Side.

Working with any new system, false alarms are more likely. The rising moon was misinterpreted as a missile attack during the early days of long-range radar. A fire at a broken gas pipeline was believed to be enemy jamming by laser of a satellite's infrared sensor when those sensors were first deployed.

The risks are illustrated by the following selection of mishap. If the people involved had exercised less caution, or if some unfortunate coincidental event had occurred, escalation to nuclear war can easily be imagined. Details of some of the events differ in different sources: where there have been disagreements, I have chosen to quote those from the carefully researched book, The Limits of Safety by Scott D. Sagan. Sagan gives references to original sources in all instances.

The following selections represent only a fraction of the false alarms that have been reported on the American side. Many probably remain unreported, or are hidden in records that remain classified. There are likely to have been as many on the Soviet Side which are even more difficult to access.

1) November 5, 1956: Suez Crisis Coincidence

British and French Forces were attacking Egypt at the Suez Canal;. The Soviet Government had suggested to the U.S. that they combine forces to stop this by a joint military action, and had warned the British and French governments that (non-nuclear) rocket attacks on London and Paris were being considered. That night NORAD HQ received messages that:

(i) unidentified aircraft were flying over Turkey and the Turkish air force was on alert

(ii) 100 Soviet MIG-15's were flying over Syria

(iii) a British Canberra bomber had been shot down over Syria

(iv) the Soviet fleet was moving through the Dardanelles.

It is reported that in the U.S.A. General Goodpaster himself was concerned that these events might trigger the NATO operations plan for nuclear strikes against the U.S.S.R.

The four reports were all shown afterwards to have innocent explanations. They were due, respectively, to:

(i) a flight of swans

(ii) a routine air force escort (much smaller than the number reported) for the president of Syria, who was returning from a visit to Moscow

(iii) the Canberra bomber was forced down by mechanical problems

(iv) the Soviet fleet was engaged in scheduled routine exercises.

2) November 24, 1961: BMEWS Communication

Failure

On the night of November 24, 1961, all communication links went dead between SAC HQ and NORAD. The communication loss cut off SAC HQ from the three Ballistic Missile Early Warning Sites (BMEWS) at Thule (Greenland,) Clear (Alaska,) and Fillingdales (England,). There were two possible explanations facing SAC HQ: either enemy action, or the coincidental failure of all the communication systems, which had redundant and ostensibly independent routes, including commercial telephone circuits. All SAC bases in the United States were therefore alerted, and B-52 bomber crews started their engines, with instructions not to to take off without further orders. Radio communication was established with an orbiting B-52 on airborne alert, near Thule. It contacted the BMEWS stations by radio and could report that no attack had taken place.

The reason for the "coincidental" failure was the redundant routes for telephone and telegraph between NORAD and SAC HQ all ran through one relay station in Colorado. At that relay station a motor had overheated and caused interruption of all the lines.

3) August 23, 1962: B-52 Navigation Error

SAC Chrome Dome airborne alert route included a leg from the northern tip of Ellesmore Island, SW across the Arctic Ocean to Barter Island, Alaska. On August 23, 1962, a B-52 nuclear armed bomber crew made a navigational error and flew 20 degrees too far north. They approached within 300 miles of Soviet airspace near Wrangel island, where there was believed to be an interceptor base with aircraft having an operational radius of 400 miles.

Because of the risk of repetition of such an error, in this northern area where other checks on Navigation are difficult to obtain, it was decided to fly a less provocative route in the future. However, the necessary orders had not been given by the time of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, so throughout that crisis the same northern route was being flown 24 hours a day.

4) August-October, 1962: U2 Flights into Soviet

Airspace

U2 high altitude reconnaissance flights from Alaska occasionally strayed unintentionally into Soviet airspace. One such episode occurred in August 1962. During the Cuban missile crisis on October of 1962, the U2 pilots were ordered not to fly within 100 miles of Soviet airspace.

On the night of October 26, for a reason irrelevant to the crisis, a U2 pilot was ordered to fly a new route, over the north pole, where positional checks on navigation were by sextant only. That night the aurora prevented good sextant readings and the plane strayed over the Chukotski Peninsula. Soviet MIG interceptors took off with orders to shoot down the U2. The pilot contacted his U.S. command post and was ordered to fly due east towards Alaska. He ran out of fuel while still over Siberia. In response to his S.O.S., U.S. F102-A fighters were launched to escort him on his glide to Alaska, with orders to prevent the MIG's from entering U.S. airspace. The U.S. interceptor aircraft were armed with nuclear missiles. These could have been used by any one of the F102-A pilots at his own discretion.

5) October 24, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: A Soviet

Satellite Explodes

On October 24, a Soviet satellite entered its own parking orbit, and shortly afterward exploded. Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank observatory wrote in 1968: "the explosion of a Russian spacecraft in orbit during the Cuban missile crisis... led the U.S. to believe that the USSR was launching a massive ICBM attack." The NORAD Command Post logs of the dates in question remain classified, possibly to conceal reaction to the event. Its occurrence is recorded, and U.S. space tracking stations were informed on October 31 of debris resulting from the breakup of "62 BETA IOTA."

6) October 25, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Intruder in Duluth

At around midnight on October 25, a guard at the Duluth Sector Direction Center saw a figure climbing the security fence. He shot at it, and activated the "sabotage alarm." This automatically set off sabotage alarms at all bases in the area. At Volk Field, Wisconsin, the alarm was wrongly wired, and the Klaxon sounded which ordered nuclear armed F-106A interceptors to take off. The pilots knew there would be no practice alert drills while DEFCON 3 was in force, and they believed World War III had started.

Immediate communication with Duluth showed there was an error. By this time aircraft were starting down the runway. A car raced from command center and successfully signaled the aircraft to stop. The original intruder was a bear.

7) October 26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: ICBM Test Launch

At Vandenburg Air Force Base, California, there was a program of routine ICBM test flights. When DEFCON 3 was ordered all the ICBM's were fitted with nuclear warheads except one Titan missile that was scheduled for a test launch later that week. That one was launched for its test, without further orders from Washington, at 4a.m. on the 26th.

It must be assumed that Russian observers were monitoring U.S. missile activities as closely as U.S. observers were monitoring Russian and Cuban activities. They would have known of the general changeover to nuclear warheads, but not that this was only a test launch.

8) October 26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis:

Unannounced Titan Missile Launch

During the Cuba crisis, some radar warning stations that were under construction and near completion were brought into full operation as fast as possible. The planned overlap of coverage was thus not always available.

A normal test launch of a Titan-II ICBM took place in the afternoon of October 26, from Florida to the South Pacific. It caused temporary concern at Moorestown Radar site until its course could be plotted and showed no predicted impact within the United States. It was not until after this event that the potential for a serious false alarm was realized, and orders were given that radar warning sites must be notified in advance of test launches, and the countdown be relayed to them.

9) October 26, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: Malstrom

Air Force Base

When DEFCON 2 was declared on October 24, solid fuel Minuteman-1 missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base were being prepared for full deployment. The work was accelerated to ready the missiles for operation, without waiting for the normal handover procedures and safety checks. When one silo and missile were ready on October 26 no armed guards were available to cover transport from the normal separate storage, so the launch enabling equipment and codes were all placed in the silo. It was thus physically possible for a single operator to launch a fully armed missile at a SIOP target.

During the remaining period of the Crisis the several missiles at Malstrom were repeatedly put on and off alert as errors and defects were found and corrected. Fortunately no combination of errors caused or threatened an unauthorized launch, but in the extreme tension of the period the danger can be well imagined.

10) October, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: NATO Readiness

It is recorded on October 22, that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and NATO Supreme Commander, General Lauris Norstad agreed not to put NATO on alert in order to avoid provocation of the U.S.S.R. When the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered DEFCON 3 Norstad was authorized to use his discretion in complying. Norstad did not order a NATO alert. However, several NATO subordinate commanders did order alerts to DEFCON 3 or equivalent levels of readiness at bases in West Germany, Italy, Turkey, and United Kingdom. This seems largely due to the action of General Truman Landon, CINC U.S. Air Forces Europe, who had already started alert procedures on October 17 in anticipation of a serious crisis over Cuba.

11) October, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: British Alerts

When the U.S. SAC went to DEFCON 2, on October 24, Bomber Command (the U.K.) was carrying out an unrelated readiness exercise. On October 26, Air Marshall Cross, CINC of Bomber Command, decided to prolong the exercise because of the Cuba crisis, and later increased the alert status of British nuclear forces, so that they could launch in 15 minutes.

It seems likely that Soviet intelligence would perceive these moves as part of a coordinated plan in preparation for immediate war. They could not be expected to know that neither the British Minister of Defense nor Prime Minister Macmillian had authorized them.

It is disturbing to note how little was learned from these errors in Europe. McGeorge Bundy wrote in Danger and Survival (New York: Random House 1988), "the risk [of nuclear war] was small, given the prudence and unchallenged final control of the two leaders."

12) October 28, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis:

Moorestown False Alarm

Just before 9 a.m., on October 28, the Moorestown, New Jersey, radar operators informed the national command post that a nuclear attack was under way. A test tape simulating a missile launch from Cuba was being run, and simultaneously a satellite came over the horizon.

Operators became confused and reported by voice line to NORAD HQ that impact was expected 18 miles west of Tampa at 9:02 a.m. The whole of NORAD was reported, but before irrevocable action had taken place it was reported that no detonation had taken place at the predicted time, and Moorestown operators reported the reason for the false alarm.

During the incident overlapping radar's that should have confirmed or disagreed were not in operation . The radar post had not received routine information of satellite passage because the facility carrying out that task had been given other work for the duration of the crisis.

13) October 28, 1962- Cuban Missile Crisis: False

Warning Due to Satellite

At 5:26 p.m. on October 28, the Laredo radar warning site had just become operational. Operators misidentified a satellite in orbit as two possible missiles over Georgia and reported by voice line to NORAD HQ. NORAD was unable to identify that the warning came from the new station at Laredo and believed it to be from Moorestown, and therefore more reliable. Moorestown failed to intervene and contradict the false warning. By the time the CINC, NORAD had been informed, no impact had been reported and the warning was "given low credence."

14) November 2, 1962: The Penkovsky False Warning

In the fall of 1962, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was working with the Soviets as a double agent for the (U.S.) C.I.A. He had been given a code by which to warn the CIA if he was convinced that a Soviet attack on the United States was imminent. He was to call twice, one minute apart, and only blow into the receiver. Further information was then to be left at a "dead drop" in Moscow.

The pre-arranged code message was received by the CIA on November 2, 1962.

It was known at the CIA that Penkovsky had been arrested on October 22. Penkovsky knew he was going to be executed. It is not known whether he had told the KGB the meaning of the code signal or only how it would be given, nor is it known exactly why or with what authorization the KGB staff used it. When another CIA agent checked the dead drop he was arrested.

15) November, 1965: Power Failure and Faulty Bomb

Alarms

Special bomb alarms were installed near military facilities and near cities in the U.S.A., so that the locations of nuclear bursts would be transmitted before the expected communication failure. The alarm circuits were set up to display a red signal at command posts the instant that the flash of a nuclear detonation reached the sensor and before the blast put it out of action. Normally the display would show a green signal, and yellow if the sensor was not operating or was out of communication for any other reason.

During the commercial power failure in the NE United States, in November 1965, displays from all the bomb alarms for the area should have shown yellow. In fact, two of them from different cities showed red because of circuit errors. The effect was consistent with the power failure being due to nuclear weapons explosions, and the Command Center of the Office of Emergency Planning went on full alert. Apparently the military did not.

16) January 21, 1968: B-52 Crash near Thule

Communication between NORAD HQ and the BMEWS station at Thule had 3 elements:

1. Direct radio communication.

2. A "bomb alarm" as described above.

3. Radio Communication relayed by a b-52 bomber on airborne alert.

On January 21, 1968, a fire broke out in the b-52 bomber on airborne alert near Thule. The pilot prepared for an emergency landing at the base. However the situation deteriorated rapidly, and the crew had to bale out. There had been no time to communicate with SAC HQ, and the pilotless plane flew over the Thule base before crashing on the ice 7 miles miles offshore. Its fuel and high explosive component of its nuclear weapons exploded, but there was no nuclear detonation.

At that time, the "one point safe" condition of the nuclear weapons could not be guaranteed, and it is believed that a nuclear explosion could have resulted from accidental detonation of the high explosive trigger. Had there been a nuclear detonation even at 7 miles distant, and certainty much nearer the base, all three communication methods would have given an indication consistent with a successful nuclear attack on both the base and the B-52 bomber. The bomb alarm would have shown red, and the other two communication paths would have gone dead. It would hardly have been anticipated that the combination could have been caused by accident, particularly as the map of the routes for B-52 airborne flights approved by the President showed no flight near to Thule. The route had been apparently changed without informing the White House.

17) October 24-25, 1973: False Alarm During Middle East Crisis

On October 24, 1973, when the U.N. sponsored cease fire intended to end the Arab-Israeli war was in force, further fighting stared between Egyptian and Israeli troops in the Sinai desert. U.S. intelligence reports and other sources suggested that the U.S.S.R. was planning to intervene to protect the Egyptians. President Nixon was in the throes of Watergate episode and not available for a conference, so Kissinger and other U.S. officials ordered DEFCON 3. The consequent movements of aircraft and troops were of course observed by Soviet intelligence. The purpose of the alert was not to prepare for war, but to warn the U.S.S.R. not to intervene in the Sinai. However, if the following accident had not been promptly corrected then the Soviet command might have had a more dangerous interpretation.

On October 25, while DEFCON 3 was in force, mechanics were repairing one of the Klaxons at Kinchole Air Force Base, Michigan, and accidentally activated the whole base alarm system. B-52 crews rushed to their aircraft and started the engines. The duty officer recognized the alarm was false and recalled the crews before any took off.

18) November 9, 1979: Computer Exercise Tape

At 8:50 a.m. on November 9, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centers (NORAD HQ, SAC Command Post, The Pentagon National Military Command Center, and the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on their displays a pattern showing a large number of Soviet Missiles in a full scale attack on the U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency preparations for retaliation were made. A number of Air Force planes were launched, including the President's National Emergency Airborne Command Post, though without the President! The President had not been informed, perhaps because he could not be found.

No attempt was made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet intentions or to tell the Soviets the reasons for U.S. actions. This seems to me to have been culpable negligence. The whole purpose of the "Hot Line" was to prevent exactly the type of disaster that was threatening at that moment.

With commendable speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early warning radar and learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the sensors on the satellites were functioning that day and had detected no missiles. In only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was terminated.

The reason for the false alarm was an exercise tape running on the computer system. U.S. Senator Charles Percy happened to be in NORAD HQ at the time and is reported to have said there was absolute panic. A question was asked in Congress. The General Accounting Office conducted an investigation, and an off-site testing facility was constructed so that test tapes did not in the future have to be run on a system that could be in military operation.

19) June , 1980: Faulty Computer Chip

The Warning displays at the Command Centers mentioned in the last episode included windows that normally showed

0000 ICBMs detected 0000 SLBMs detected

At 2:25 a.m. on June 3, 1980, these displays started showing various numbers of missiles detected, represented by 2's in place of one or more 0's. Preparations for retaliation were instituted, including nuclear bomber crews staring their engines, launch of Pacific Command's Airborne Command Post, and readying of Minutemen missiles for launch. It was not difficult to assess that this was a false alarm because the numbers displayed were not rational.

While the cause of that false alarm was still being investigated 3 days later, the same thing happened and again preparations were made for retaliation. The cause was a single faulty chip that was failing in a random fashion. The basic design of the system was faulty, allowing this single failure to cause a deceptive display at several command posts.

The following incident is added to illustrate that even now, when the Cold War has been over for 8 years errors can still cause concern. This particular one could have hardly brought nuclear retaliation.; but there are still 30,000 nuclear weapons deployed, and two nuclear weapon states could get into a hostile adversarial status again.

20) January, 1995: Russian False Alarm

On January 25, 1995, the Russian early warning radar's detected an unexpected missile launch near Spitzbergen. The estimated flight time to Moscow was 5 minutes. The Russian President, the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff were informed. The early warning and the control and command center switched to combat mode. Within 5 minutes, the radar's determined that the missile's impact would be outside the Russian borders.

The missile was Norwegian, and was launched for scientific measurements. ON January 16, Norway had notified 35 countries including Russia that the launch was planned. Information had apparently reached the Russian Defense Ministry, but failed to reach the on-duty personnel of the early warning system.

See article in Scientific American by Bruce G. Blair, Harold A. Feiveson and Frank N. von Hippel

Comment and Note On Probability

The probability of actual progression to nuclear war on any one of the occasions listed may have been small, due to planned "fail-safe" features had failed. However, the accumulation of small probabilities of disaster from a long sequence of risks add up to serious danger.

There is no way of telling what the actual level of risk was in these mishaps but if the chance of disaster in every one of the 20 incidents had been only 1 in 100, it is mathematical fact that the chance of surviving al 20 would have been 82%, i.e. about the same as the chance of surviving a single pull of the trigger at Russian roulette played with a 6 shooter. With a similar series of mishaps on the Soviet side: another pull of the trigger. If the risk in some of the events had been as high as 1 in 10, then the chance of surviving just seven such events would have been less than 50:50.

Acronyms

BMEWS: Ballistic Missile Early Warning Site

CIA: Central Intelligence Agency

CINC: Commander in Chief

DEFCON: Defense Readiness Condition (DEFCON 5 is the peacetime state; DEFCON 1 is a maximum war readiness).

HQ: Headquarters

ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (land based)

KGB: Soviet Secret Police and Intelligence

NORAD: North American Air Defense Command

PAVE PAWS: Precision Acquisition of Vehicle Entry Phased-Array Warning System

SAC: Strategic Air Command

SIOP: Single Integrated Operational Plan

SLBM: Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile

Principal Sources
Britten, Stewart: The Invisible Event , (London: Menard Press, 1983).
Calder, Nigel: Nuclear Nightmares , (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1979)
Peace Research Reviews , vol. ix: 4, 5 (1984); vol. x: 3, 4 (1986) (Dundas, ON.: Peace Research Institute, Dundas).
Sagan, Scott D.: The Limits of Safety , (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, (1993).

WEB LINKS FROM THE PROJECT OF THE NUCLEAR AGE PEACE FOUNDATION
(link)

Arms Control & Disarmament NGO's and Think Tanks

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

20/20 Vision http://www.2020vision.org
Abolition 2000 Network http://www.abolition2000.org
Acronym Institute http://www.acronym.org.uk/
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability http://www.ananuclear.org
Alsos Digital Library http://alsos.wlu.edu/
American Council for Voluntary International Action http://www.interaction.org/
American Enterprise Institute http://www.aei.org/
Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/
Arms Control Association http://www.armscontrol.org
Aspen Institute http://www.aspeninst.org/
Atomic Archive http://www.atomicarchive.com/
"Back from the Brink" Campaign http://www.DEALERT.org/
Berlin Information-Center for Transatlantic Security (BITS) http://www.bits.de/
British American Security Information Council http://www.basicint.org/
Brookings Institution http://www.brook.edu/
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists http://www.thebulletin.org/past_issues/
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament http://www.cnduk.org
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility http://www.ccnr.org/
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs http://www.ens.gu.edu.au/ciree/ECOHOT/topics_d/sochome
Carter Center http://www.cartercenter.org/default.asp?bFlash=True
Center for Defense Information http://www.cdi.org/
Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University http://www.princeton.edu/~cees/
Centre for European Policy Studies http://www.ceps.be/Default.php
Center for European Security and Disarmament http://www.cesd.org/
Center for International Relations http://www.bu.edu/ir/cir.html
Center for International Security and Cooperation http://cisac.stanford.edu/
Center for Nonproliferation Studies http://www.miis.edu/
Center for Policy Studies in Russia (PIR Center) http://www.PIRcenter.org/english
Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research http://www.fsk.ethz.ch/
Center for Strategic & International Studies http://www.csis.org/
Chem Cases http://www.chemcases.com/nuclear/index.htm
Civicus http://www.civicusassembly.org/
Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers http://www.clw.org/coalition/index.html
Cold War International History Project http://cwihp.si.edu/default.htm
Committee on Nuclear Policy (Stimson Center) http://www.stimson.org/home.cfm
Conflict Management Group http://www.cmgroup.org/
Copenhagen Peace Research Institute http://www.copri.dk/
Council on Foreign Relations http://www.foreignrelations.org/
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European Institute http://www.europeaninstitute.org/
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Fund for Peace http://www.fundforpeace.org/
Global Information Access NeT http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/dbinfo/
Global Public Policy Project http://www.globalpublicpolicy.net/
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) http://www.gracelinks.org
Global Security Institute http://www.gsinstitute.org
Greenpeace International ( NPT page ) http://www.greenpeace.org/
Hiroshima Peace Museum http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html
Hoover Institution http://WWW-Hoover.Stanford.EDU/
Hudson Institute http://www.hudson.org/
Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research http://www.ieer.org/
International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) http://www.ialana.org
International Center for Economic Growth http://www.iceg.org/
International Crisis Group http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/
International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) http://www.inesap.org
International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility http://www.inesglobal.org
International Peace Bureau http://www.ipb.org/
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) http://www.ippnw.org
Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex) http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/
Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation http://www-igcc.ucsd.edu/
Institute for International Economics http://www.iie.com/
Institute for Security Studies http://www.iss.co.za/
International Institute for Strategic Studies http://www.iiss.org/
International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) http://www.inesap.org/
International Relations and Security Network (ISN) http://www.isn.ethz.ch/
International Security Information Service http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/
Japan Council Against A Bombs (Gensuikyo) http://www10.plala.or.jp/antiatom
Lawyers Alliance for World Security http://www.lawscns.org/
Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy http://www.lcnp.org
Le Mouvement de la Paix http://www.mvtpaix.org/
Methodists United for Peace and Justice http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=2&mid=156
Middle East Policy Center http://www.mepc.org/
Middle East Policy Studies http://www.rand.org/nsrd/cmepp/
Moving Beyond Missile Defense http://www.mbmd.org
NGO Committee on Disarmament http://www.igc.apc.org/disarm/
Nagasaki Peace Museum http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/na-bomb/museum/museume01.html
National Center for Policy Analysis http://www.ncpa.org/
National Endowment for Democracy http://www.ned.org/
National Security Archive http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
National Bureau of Asian Research http://www.nbr.org/
Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.igc.org/nrdc/
Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development http://www.nautilus.org/
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation http://www.wagingpeace.org/
Nuclear Control Institute http://www.nci.org/home.htm
Nuclear Free Local Authorities http://www.nfznsc.gn.apc.org/index.html
Nuclear Pathways http://www.nuclearpathways.org/
Nuclear Resister http://www.nonviolence.org/nukeresister
Oxford Research Group http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/
Pacific Islands Association of NGOs http://www.piango.org/
Pacific Life Research Center http://www.plrc.org/
Pax Christi USA http://www.nonviolence.org/pcusa
Peace Action, USA http://www.peace-action.org/
Physicians for Social Responsibility http://www.psr.org/home.cfm?id=home
Population Reference Bureau http://www.prb.org/
Progressive Policy Institute http://www.dlcppi.org/
Project of Defense Alternatives http://www.comw.org/pda/
Proposition One http://www.prop1.org
Radiation Hazards http://www.labridge.com/PSR/nukeSearch.html
RAND Corp. http://www.rand.org/
Reaching Critical Will http:// www.reachingcriticalwill.org
Royal Institute of International Affairs http://www.riia.org/
Shundahai Network http://www.shundahai.org/
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) http://www.sipri.se/
Henry L. Stimson Center http://www.stimson.org/
Twentieth Century Fund http://www.tcf.org/
Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/
United States Institute of Peace http://www.usip.org/
Urban Institute http://www.urban.org/
War Resisters League, USA http://www.nonviolence.org/~nvweb/wrl
Western States Legal Foundation http://www.wslfweb.org
Women's Action for New Directions, USA http://www.wand.org/
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) , International Office http://www.wilpf.int.ch/
Woodrow Wilson Center and Kennan Institute http://wwics.si.edu/
World Information Service on Energy http://www.antenna.nl/wise/
World Policy Institute http://worldpolicy.org/

Resources

Columbia International Affairs Online http://www.ciaonet.org/
Institute for Global Communications http://www.igc.org/igc/
International Relations and Security Network http://www.isn.ethz.ch/
Policy.com http://policy.com/
Research Guide by NRDC http://www.igc.apc.org/nrdc/nrdcpro/nuguide/guinx.html
Research Centers in International Relations http://www.usip.org/library/rcenters.html
CDI Links http://www.cdi.org/links/
Politika (Russian) http://www.cityline.ru/politika/

Magazines and Journals

Disarmament Diplomacy http://www.acronym.org.uk/dddesc.htm
Foreign Affairs http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
Foreign Policy http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
The Economist http://www.economist.com/
World News Connection http://wnc.fedworld.gov/

RELIGION, WAR AND SLAVERY

2006-02-08T19:48:00.001+01:00

The Atlantic Slave Trade
Thomas Clarkson, a British abolitionist produced and displayed this image with his 1786 Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of Human Species. The same image has appeared in numerous abolitionist pamphlets and modern history textbooks (link)

Catastrophe:

"The conquest of the New World set off two vast demographic catastrophes, unparalled in history: the virtual destruction of the indigenous population of the Western hemisphere, and the devastation of Africa as the slave trade rapidly expanded to serve the needs of the conquerors, and the continent itself was subjugated."

– Noam Chomsky (Year 501, p5)(link)

The Christianizing of America 1750-1850 (link)
by Kenneth Humphreys

Birth of a Nation

On the frontiers of the New World Christianity set aside any notions of cheek-turning pacifism and universal brotherhood to embrace the manly notions of rugged individualism and aggressive acquisition. Frontier Christianity was the faith of the Lord's conquerors, untroubled by the fate of those who had to perish to make way. The Good Book, as interpreted by a new breed of itinerant pastors, reassured them that they were Good People. The guiding hand of Divine Providence itself sanctioned their ruthless greed and the more wealth they could amass was surely indicative of God's approval. With the Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other the new Americans were claiming their inheritance.

The Making of a Kleptocratic Republic

"The plague that killed the kings of Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru – and half their subjects – had struck equally hard in the unknown kingdoms of the north ... The "tribes" the English would find, though still considerable, were remnants of once powerful states. Homes had rotted away and woods had crept back into fields. America seemed a virgin land waiting for civilization. But Europe had made the wilderness it found; America was not a virgin, she was a widow."

– R. Wright (Stolen Continents, p91)

French explorers venturing down the Mississippi Valley only sixty years after De Soto's rampage found only a few tiny villages. Yet all around they saw the decaying remains of a substantial agrarian civilization. They noted abandoned towns and what once had been fertile agricultural land returning to the wild.

One of the largest centres of this vanished civilization was Cahokia in Illinois, a tribal capital which covered 5 square miles. At its height, probably the 13th century, its population must have been at least 10,000, comparable to London at the same time. So awe-struck by the great mounds of the Ohio valley were the early settlers that Joseph Smith dreamed up a white race of 'Nephites' to explain them and gave his mythical heroes a biblical-style history in the Book of Mormon.

Estimates vary wildly, but before the arrival of Europeans, and more particularly their diseases, perhaps as many as twelve million people lived in what are now the United States. What is certain is that the Europeans arrived from a world wrecked by religious conflict, and salivated at the prospect of extracting limitless wealth from an unexploited land. As the 18th century unfolded the continent became a vast theatre of war as three Christian empires wrestled for the riches of this new world.

The empire of Spain, having dissipated in war the plunder already extracted from much of the Americas, was well into decline. Though the Spanish claimed the entire hemisphere they were in no position to enforce that claim. The French moved cautiously into the interior along the river valleys of the St Lawrence and Mississippi, building forts and claiming a dubious territorial authority over a vast area. By far the more populous settlements were the colonies of England (an estimated 200,000 people in 1700, 1.3 million by 1750), confined by mountains and her rivals to the eastern coast.

Ethnic Cleansing Begins

"The ruin of these races began the day the Europeans landed on their shores; it has continued since then; it is reaching its completion at the present time." – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.

The Native Americans, weakened by alien-imported disease for more than a century, were slow to resist the invader. Indeed, their kindness and curiosity had caused them to feed the first desperate settlers (see Christ in the Colonies). In return, the invading fanatics gave thanks to their own God for using the savages to effect divine deliverance. So much for Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately for them, the natives who met the intruders were not a single, homogeneous population but were divided into more than 250 distinctive groups, with many different languages, kinship systems and cultural patterns. This disunity allowed the invaders to form opportunistic alliances with particular tribes and adopt a successful divide and conquer policy. In the north, the French struck an alliance with the Algonquin and Huron tribes, which prompted their traditional enemies the Iroquois to ally themselves with the English.

In the complex struggle ahead, the European intruders were only too willing to supply their native allies with firearms with which to better exterminate each other. Indeed, Jesuits and missionaries offered guns as an inducement to conversion to Christianity. European weapons transformed the traditional inter-tribal warfare into something far deadlier. Hitherto, "Braves" had always proven their virility in battle but allied to the European invader their wars now became a process of conquest and annihilation which benefitted only the Europeans.

The Christians, joyous that their God had covenanted a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, were ready to fight to the death of the last Indian.

Culture clash

The relentless alien assault intruded into every facet of native life, and most fundamentally into the ownership of land. More than merely territory, the natives held the earth sacred, venerated as a benevolent Mother, a notion meaningless to the intruders who took their own sanctity from a book. Common ownership, as practised by the Indians, was perceived by Europeans as primitive and unchristian. The migrants were there, after all, not merely to live but to acquire, and that meant essentially personal ownership of land. To the newcomers the land was a "wilderness" to be mastered, tamed and enclosed into "property".

From the first, the guileless Indians ceded tracts of land to these strangely avaricious people but even in a period of "peace" the insatiable appetite of Europeans for pelts and hides destroyed the ecological balance which the native peoples had maintained for millennia. Thus began the steady eradication of the indigenous wildlife, exacerbated by the horses and cows of the invader which ate the grasslands that had previously fed the deer and caribou. And everywhere was the pressure of more and more settlers, each and every one of them wanting "property".

Resistance is Futile

"Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy ... And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein."
– (Numbers 33.52-53).

Belatedly, in 1675, the exasperated Indians of New England turned their enmity towards the colonists. Against overwhelming firepower and resources the struggle was hopeless. In a single incident during the so-called "King Philip's War" some 600 Indians were massacred. A delighted Cotton Mather, pastor of the Second Church of Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a "barbeque". At the end of the conflict most of New England's Indians were either dead or had taken refuge in Canada. Some were sold into slavery in the Carolinas.

With the viability of her American colonies firmly established, in 1684 the English crown replaced the restrictive "Puritan" charter of Massachusetts with one more to its liking. In Boston and the coastal cities the "rule of the Saints" was succeeded by the governance of a practical and corrupt commercialism. Whaling and pirate vessels were built, fitted out and supplied from the cities of the eastern seaboard. The illicit import of molasses from the French West Indies established another major industry, the distillation of a coarse rum. Whisky and rum not only encouraged local drunkenness and crime: when sold to the Indians it caused serious debilitation. With metabolisms ill-suited to the alien fire water the natives were frequently reduced to addiction and then cheated out of their land. By 1750 Massachusetts had 63 distilleries. By then the distillers were rich enough to invest capital in slave traders keen to ship captive Africans to the West Indian sugar planters.

Religious toleration: Good for business

Before he fled in 1688 James II granted fellow Catholics and French Huguenots religious freedom in Virginia. It was the last defiant act of a religious extremist. The Glorious Revolution which displaced James ended decades of religious intransigence in England and within a generation that liberality spread to the colonies. The Protestantism of an incipient empire was not about to allow differences of religious faith to obstruct global commercial expansion. In 1750 England's Board of Trade imposed "toleration and free exercise of religion" on its American colonies in order to attract new migrants and encourage trade. Anglicans (but without a local bishop) were thus able to set up shop in the former outpost of Puritan separatism, as were the European Anabaptists and Mennonites driven out of the Rhineland by the religious wars of Louis XIV.

Along with European migrants and goods came the new science of the Enlightenment. Many intellectuals rejected Christianity entirely, along with its confused nonsense of the Trinity and Calvin's pessimistic notion of man's "total depravity". Instead the Deists and Unitarians argued for the essential goodness of mankind, emphasising reason and human progress. When it came to souls all might be saved.

Reason baffles the hicks

In contrast, settlers on the frontier, outcasts from the sophisticated society of the coastal cities, persevered with a simplistic understanding of the "Kingdom of God", less in tune with a rational God of loving benevolence than with the Old Testament despot of divine retribution.

In the 1740s religious "revivalism" (the so-called "Great Awakening") brought a campaign of primitive fanaticism to the whites of the frontier zone. Cheek by jowl with the heathen savages, these practical, ignorant folk were suspicious of complicated theology and the "sophisticated" faith of the Eastern seaboard which had mellowed from its puritanical days into a restrained piety.

The fire that had once belonged to the Congregationalists and Quakers – now pillars of respectable commerce – passed to a new breed of hot gospelling Presbyterians and Methodists. Their "open air" style of sermonizing and use of untrained "lay" preachers servicing a circuit of meeting places can be credited to the Wesley brothers. These maverick English Anglicans (banned from English parish churches for their idiosyncratic theology) ministered in the new penal colony of Georgia in the 1730s and subsequently John Wesley ordained a "Superintendent" in lieu of a bishop for the American colonies.

The itinerant Methodist preachers, able to keep up with, and perambulate between, the isolated frontier settlements, offered nothing in the way of pastoral work. A church house was a luxury, a field might do. Instead they put on a show emphasising fire and brimstone, "spirit healings", and the Lord's "living presence". Having whipped up an atmosphere of emotionalism and hysteria, complete with screaming, shouting and weeping, the call came for personal conversion – and of course a little cash.

In the demonology of the frontier zealots the unrepentant heathen were minions of the devil and had to be sent back to hell. Thus it was with the condoning word of the Lord that American settlers could kill natives and hound them from the land. Convinced of their own moral superiority, yet in reality vicious, violent and essentially criminal, the interlopers could take over land already cleared of, and by, its former occupants.

Confronted by such missionaries the Native Americans had little option but to pay lip service to the strange and aggressive religion of the invader.

The French Disconnection

Colonial rivalry led Britain to declare war on France in 1756, and on Spain six years later. In the seven year conflict, in which local tribes were deployed as auxiliaries on both sides, Britain wrestled the Ohio valley and Quebec from France, and Florida from Spain. The (1st) Treaty of Paris which brought the Seven Years' War (aka 'French and Indian War') to an end, parcelled out Canada to Britain and compensated Spain with a vast territory west of the Mississippi called Louisiana.

With the defeat of the French, a confederation of tribes in the lands south of the Great Lakes, led by chief Pontiac of the Ottawa, continued the struggle, attacking forts across a broad swath of territory. Imperial and colonial forces retaliated with overwhelming force. During the conflict Lord Jeffrey Amherst earned eternal infamy by ordering that blankets infected with smallpox be supplied to the Indians, an early instance of germ warfare. But the war left the British wary of trying to garrison all the lands taken from France. Instead, Britain's Indian allies were "rewarded" by a prohibition on colonists settling west of the Appalachians, although "over mountain men" ignored the stipulation and immediately began crossing the so-called "Proclamation Line". In 1768 the Mohawk valley passed into the hands of Scots who themselves had been driven from their homes by highland clearances.In 1775, Daniel Boone hacked his way through the Cumberland Gap, opening up a new route into the interior.

With the defeat of French and Indian forces the colonies had little need of British protection – and certainly were not prepared to pay for it.

Revolution

By 1776, more than 2 million people were living in Britain's North American colonies. With the elimination of French power a segment of the colonial population allied itself with the former enemy to throw off imperial restrictions. The thirteen colonies of British North America – perhaps two thirds of their population, that is – rebelled against British rule. France supplied the rebels with 90% of their gunpowder and a Prussian trained their army.

Divided, the disparate and scattered colonies would have fallen one by one to imperial forces. Unity was therefore of the utmost importance and religious discord had to be put aside. A union based upon mutual religious tolerance was a necessary concomitant of the struggle for independence. The new nation, led for the most part by Deists and Unitarians, achieved a shaky federation by ceding rights and liberties to the disparate communities and settlements. An ill-defined "unity under God" – however understood – and a separation of church from state, was the only formula for success. It was a formula which particularly appealed to the revolutionary leaders – Paine, Franklin, etc. – who were themselves actually anti-Christian. Thus at its birth, the republic endorsed no official mystical creed nor state-sanctioned church.

In the United States of America, 1776, the Christian religion, for the first time since Emperor Constantine fourteen hundred years earlier, found itself without the power of the state to enforce its will. The multifarious sects which had set up shop in the new commonwealth had to compete with each other for membership and influence. Entrepreneurial Christianity was born.

War's end

"Treaties were expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people were induced ... to yield up what civilized people had the right to possess."
– George Gilmer, Governor of Georgia, c. 1830 (Wright, p202)

In 1783 the (2nd) Treaty of Paris, formally ending the Revolutionary War, had disastrous consequences for Native Americans. Under the treaty the newly formed United States acquired title to all lands west to the Mississippi and the colonial population immediately put unremitting pressure on the tribes in the northwest and southeast. Abandoned by their allies, the native confederacies were powerless to stop aggressive American expansion.

In what had been nominal "British" territory beyond the Appalachians new states were rapidly organized: Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), and Ohio (1803). Meanwhile, revolution and turmoil in France brought Napoleon to power, and in the small but highly profitable French colony of Saint-Domingue a slave rebellion defeated French forces. The loss of "Haiti" thwarted French plans for a new empire in the Americas and in 1803 Napoleon sold the vast Louisiana territory, retaken from Spain only three years earlier, to the United States for $15 million.

Overnight, the republic doubled in size and laid claim to 800,000 square miles of unknown territory stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific northwest. Much of it was rapidly parcelled out – Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Alabama (1817), Illinois (1818), Mississippi (1819), and Missouri (1821). The pressure of white encroachment now passed onto the Plains Indians whilst what remained of the woodland tribes – Saux, Fox, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole – fought their last desperate battles.

Ethnic cleansing gathers pace

"The inhabitants of the United States do not hunt the Indians down with a great clamor, like the Spanish in Mexico. But here, as elsewhere, it is the same pitiless sentiment ... 'The brandy which we sell to them cheaply annually removes more of them than our weapons could manage... God, by his refusal to grant its first inhabitants the art of civilization, doomed them to inevitable destruction. The true owners of this continent are those who are able to take advantage of its wealth.'
Pleased with this argument, the American repairs to church where he listens to a minister of the Gospel repeat to him that men are brothers and the everlasting Being has given them all the duty of helping one another."

– Alexis de Tocqueville (Two Weeks in the Wilderness, 1835).

Andrew Jackson was a slave-owning backwoodsman from South Carolina, of Irish descent. He was a Presbyterian. He was also an aggressive and avaricious "second generation" frontiersman and an aristocrat of the New Order, a politico-businessman with "connections", a cotton planter, a land-speculator and a bully. Exploiting his appointment to various public offices (judge, congressman, senator), Jackson dislodged thousands of poor white farmers and sent them streaming into Indian lands, where new "provocations" would provide an excuse for Jackson (also a general in the militia) to renew aggression against the native tribes.

In 1814 "King Andrew" led a savage campaign against the Creek nation long settled in the rich lands of the southeast. Though all the tribes were fearful of white encroachment the Creeks were divided, both on the issue of an alliance with the British (then at war with the U.S.) and on acceptance of the ways of the white man (they were, after all, one of the "civilized" tribes.)

Not that the difference of tribal opinion really mattered. Determined and ruthless, Jackson sequestered lands even from tribes that had fought as his allies. Vast tracts of Alabama and Mississippi were parcelled out to white settlers, with Jackson taking much of the land for himself.

In 1818, now enjoying the rank of Major General in the regular army, Jackson audaciously invaded the land of Seminole Indians living in Spanish Florida, ostensibly because the Seminole were accepting runaway slaves as members of their tribe. In command of 3000 troops Jackson wiped out several Indian villages and annexed Florida.

In 1829 he became President.

The Frontier Mentality - Zealots with guns

"The 'assent' of Indians was often nominal; federal commissioners bribed important chiefs and if necessary got them drunk enough to sign anything ... Between 1829 and 1837 several million acres were relinquished, and many thousand redskins more or less unwillingly transferred across the Mississippi." – (Morison, et al p438,9)

The Cherokee had first encountered the white invaders in the 18th century and had moved further west for safety. But they had also assimilated some of the ways of the restless newcomer, building houses, laying out roads, devising their own written language. The tribes adopted a national constitution and even accepted Christian missionaries. For a time an autonomous republic existed on the frontier of the kleptocracy. Unfortunately for the Cherokee in 1828 gold was discovered in their land and the new Americans of Georgia now claimed the Cherokee country for themselves.

Breaking with the policy of his predecessor, and ignoring a ruling of the Supreme Court, Andrew Jackson enthusiastically supported his rapacious countrymen. He vigorously enforced the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which required the relocation of all eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi. In the winter of 1838, the reluctant Cherokee were forced marched 1000 miles at bayonet point to an involuntary exile, an ethnic cleansing known as "The Trail of Tears". At least 4000 died during the journey. The sick, despondent and impoverished survivors were confined to "reservations" on the worst lands of Oklahoma.

The Seminole in Florida were not so readily subdued. Under their charismatic leader Osceola the Seminole outwitted the U.S. army for years. Osceola was eventually captured by treachery, taken under a flag of truce. He died in a South Carolina prison only months later. Embarassed army officers gave him a military funeral.

Divine Will made manifest

"We must have exciting, powerful preaching, or the devil will have the people, except what the Methodists can save."
– Charles Finney (1792-1875), apostle of religious hysteria and pastor of the First Church in Oberlin, Ohio.

In the wake of the Revolutionary and Indian wars, ever greater numbers of settlers migrated into the newly conquered lands. The practitioners of priestly deceit followed the population westward. In frontier areas lacking churches, schools and newspapers, a vast clientele might have been lost to heathendom. But, thankfully, the zealots were there to save them.

In a pattern similar to events on the old northeast frontier a century earlier, the notion of "revival" served the divine purpose. Large camp meetings allowed an assortment of competitive preachers – Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist – to peddle their wares and drum up business. Many thousands were drawn to the periodic hullabaloos, as much as anything else enjoying a welcome break from the isolation and drudgery of frontier life.

The preachers themselves were often poorly educated, but then the gatherings were no seminars for the close study of theology. On the contrary, intellectual subtlety would have obscured the message. Sermons were energetic and emotional. The illiterate believer was encouraged not to think but to “feel” God through personal experience. In an atmosphere deliberately designed to engender hysterical euphoria, many surely did. Rapidly, the Lord's salesman moved his audience through a cycle of guilt, despair and hope, building to a climax of “born again” conversion, personal salvation – and of course, a little financial gratitude for the furtherance of the Lord's work. To sustain the message in the quieter days ahead, music and hymns took the place of literacy and rational discourse. Songs conveyed enough of the "good news" to suffice and songs had the merit of being easily memorized by all.

The breeding ground of cults

In the frontier lands of avarice and toil any slick-tongued hustler of limited means and unlimited ambition could "sell the Lord" to the hicks and the hillbillies. By such means he secured his own fast track to fame and fortune.

When the first charismatic leaders died and the hot gospel cooled a little, an opportunity arose for new saints and charlatans to move among the people, restoring the excitement and ecstasy of "old time religion" and whipping up a profitable frenzy of revival.

Thus was born the chronic factionalism in which any forceful patriarch could establish a church and a following, a formula uniquely suited to a land of expanding frontiers and unrestrained enterprise.

Entrepreneurial Christianity was about to enter a golden age of creative theology, borrowing freely from Freemasonry, Egyptology, socialism, occultism, spiritualism and plain old fashion nonsense. It would ultimately produce several major corporations in the world of Jesus marketeering. Christianity may have been in retreat in the Old World but in the New World Christianity was on the march, as blood soaked as ever.

Sources:
J. C. H. King, First Peoples, First Contacts (British Museum, 1999)
Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Simon & Schuster, 1981)
Colin Taylor (Ed.), The Native Americans (Chrysalis, 2004)
Andrew Sinclair, A Concise History of the United States (Sutton, 2000)
Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (Yale University Press, 1972)
Jerald C. Brauer, Protestantism in America (Westminster Press, 1953)
Robert T. Handy, A Christian America (Oxford University Press, 1971)
Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion (Oxford University Press, 1980)
Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America (Norton, 1976)
J. Spiller, et al, The United States 1763-2001 (Routledge, 2005)
Morrison, Commager, Leuchtenburg, The Growth of the American Republic (OUP, 1980)

Having laid claim to an entire continent and eradicated most of its native peoples, the Christian conquerors of North America came into possession of an immense land. The rapid exploitation of its potential required a vast labour force and, until a surge in European migration in the later 19th century, this was taken against its will out of Africa, leaving the demography of that continent permanently damaged. On the southern plantations of tobacco and cotton the captive labourers enriched an elite of white landowners who themselves provided trade and custom for the northeast and the Old World. Christianity, malleable as ever, morphed not only into the self-justifying ideology of the racist southern oligarchs, but also into the uplifting faith of freedom and salvation of the slaves themselves.

Quite some trick for the cult of a west Asian sun-god .

Slavery – Divine Law

Although the early Church drew support from slaves it never condemned the practice of slavery. On the contrary, Holy Scripture thoroughly endorses the enslavement of lesser races and assures us that the forced conversion of the heathen is a noble Christian purpose, saving souls for the true God. All are "equal before God" but for eighteen hundred years Christianity aided and abetted slavery and taught explicitly the barbarous notion that slavery was in accordance with Divine Will.

"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from the nations that are round about you.
You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property.
You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness."

– Leviticus 25.44

The shadowy writer Ambrosiaster of the 4th century, in commentaries on Paul's epistles, compounded the iniquity by concocting the racist notion that slavery originated with Noah's curse upon his son Ham, which actually fell upon his unfortunate grandson Canaan.

Why the curse?

Because at the end of the flood, Canaan's daddy caught sight of Noah roaring drunk and prancing about naked. Is that a sin or what?

Christian fablelizing equated the fearsome curse with the dark skin of Africans, rationalizing that Canaan had turned black before settling in Africa. In the true spirit of biblical justice, the curse was inflicted on all subsequent descendents. Thus the reality of centuries of enslavement and torment of millions of Africans found biblical justification in a yarn about drunken revelry.

And they call it a good book?

Slave-owning Church

"The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow ... Moreover, when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the master ... This servitude is, however, penal, and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance."

– St Augustine, City of God (De Civitate Dei), XIX, 15.

By the time the Church came to power it was already a major slave owner, preserving at least one aspect of ancient Roman civilization. But what the Church rapidly jettisoned were pagan Rome's laws concerning the rights of slaves and the possible attainment of their freedom. Slavery in Christendom was for life.

As early as 340 the Church Council of Gangra (today's Çankiri in Turkey), in reaction to rival Manicheans urging slaves to free themselves, adopted as law a slave's "Christian obligation" to submit to the authority of the slave master "as if to God". The Council decreed:

"If anyone, on the pretext of religion teaches another man's slave to despise his master, and to withdraw from his service, and not to serve his master with good will and respect, let him be anathema."

Pope Gregory I (590-604), reportedly, had been moved to describe English slaves as "Angels, not Angles" – but not "free those slaves and close down the slave market", markets which continued in a city otherwise rapidly decaying under papal rule. The attitude of Pope Martin I (649-653) was perhaps typical of later pontiffs when he ruled against "unjust slavery" which of course left open the door to a "just slavery" of heathen races and captives taken in war.

MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY (link)

At no time after antiquity did the slave trade ever leave the Mediterranean. Christian Europe was aggressively seizing Muslim slaves with the same pitiless inhumanity that Muslim states were seizing Christian slaves.

"Muslim slaves were at work on the rebuilding of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in 1150, just as Christian slaves were working on the Mosque of Kutubiyya at Marrakesh." – (Thomas, p39).

Muslim traders exported as many as 17 million slaves of all races to the ports of the Indian Ocean, to the Middle East and to North Africa. For three hundred years, raiders from the Barbary states of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers ravaged the coasts of Italy and France, carrying off their human prey and extinguishing the last vestiges of "Roman" civilization. As late as the 17th century English captives, taken by Arab corsairs, were being sold in the slave market of Constantinople. In total, perhaps a million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims, most consigned to short and brutal lives in galleys, mines and quarries.

From a very early date, the peripatetic Jews established themselves as slave traders across Europe. After the Islamic conquests, Jews were uniquely placed to ship human cargoes between the Muslim and Christian worlds. Licensed by Christian princes, and recognized as "people of the book" in the lands of Islam, Jewish slave traders shipped Slav and Germanic captives south in exchange for the delights of Islamic crafts and science, much sought after in the Christian north.

All three monotheistic tyrannies especially prized black skinned "Ethiopians" for their perceived strength and docility, though warfare rewarded the victor with slaves of all races. The legitimacy of "just title slavery" was incorporated into the official body of Canon Law of Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241):

" It is certainly a matter of faith that this sort of slavery in which a man serves his master as his slave, is altogether lawful. This is proved from Holy Scripture. It is also proved from reason for it is not unreasonable that just as things which are captured in a just war pass into the power and ownership of the victors, so persons captured in war pass into the ownership of the captors. All theologians are unanimous on this."

– Leander, Quaestiones Morales Theologicae, Lyons 1668 - 1692,
Tome VIII, De Quarto Decalogi Praecepto, Tract. IV, Disp. I, Q. 3.

For centuries, the maritime empire of Venice, whose fleet sailed under the banner of the evangelist St Mark, dominated the Mediterranean slave trade. Africans bought in Alexandria were sold in European ports, whilst Slav captives taken from the shores of the Black Sea were sold to Turks and Arabs. Professed Christianity made no difference. Venetian merchants were as happy to sell youths of "heretical" Orthodox belief as those who were merely heathen. In the east, these young men were used as eunuchs and Janissaries, the young women as concubines and prostitutes. Many thousands of slaves also served on the patrician estates of Italy, on the galleys that protected the Venetian trade monopoly and on the sugar plantations of Cyprus and Crete.

The lucrative trade in human bondage which enriched Venice, along with the spices, was eventually challenged by other Christian states on the far west of Europe.

Soon after the Portuguese entered tropical waters in the 15th century the shipment of African slaves back to Europe began. In 1488, King Ferdinand of Spain sent a hundred Moorish slaves to Pope Innocent VIII, who passed them on as gifts to his cardinals and cronies. The papacy gave the trade its blessing and the monastic houses took their share of shackled humanity.

Before the century was out, the first European adventurers had reached the islands of the Caribbean and were cruising the coasts of the Americas. At opportune moments, they snatched unsuspecting Indios and took them back to Europe, where they were exhibited as exotic trophies and sold in the slave markets of Seville, Toulouse and Bristol.

Most famously, taken from the shores of New England, was Squanto, a Wampanoag Indian captured by an English gang in 1614 and sold into slavery in Spain. Squanto actually got free of the monks who bought him, worked his way across Europe to England and joined a British ship bound for Newfoundland as an interpreter. From Newfoundland Squanto made his way back to Massachusetts, only to find that, in his absence, European diseases had wiped out everyone in his village. Pathetically, Squanto was able to greet the struggling Pilgrims that came ashore in 1620 in their own language. No Hollywood epic for this guy.

The Spanish pope, Alexander VI, made clear to his Iberian compatriots that they had

" .. full and free permission to invade, search out, capture and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities and other properties and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery."

– Bull Eximiae Devotionis, 1493.

Perpetual slavery did indeed fellow for millions as the Spanish carved out their vast empire in the Americas. The "Requerimiento", drafted in 1510, warned indigenous peoples that death or slavery was imminent if they did not immediately submit to Spain and Roman Catholicism. Of course, the guileless natives would not have understood a word of the imperial rescript declaimed by a priest as the Conquistadors sharpened their blades. Unfortunately, the natives of the Americas made poor slaves – they died at an alarming rate. But "black gold" would arrive to more than make up the loss.

Slaves – White, Red and Black

With the conquest of the Americas, and the annihilation of its native peoples, a vast demand for labour was answered by ramping up supply from Africa. Tribal warlords ("Slattees") on the coasts of Senegambia and Guinea (the so-called "Ivory Coast", "Gold Coast", and "Slave Coast") waged aggressive war against tribes of the interior to service the insatiable export market.

"The Europeans found a more compendious way of procuring African slaves, by prevailing upon them to make war upon each other, and to sell their prisoners. Till then they seldom had any wars; but were in general quiet and peaceable. But the white men first taught them drunkenness and avarice, and then hired them to sell one another. Nay, by this means, even their Kings are induced to sell their own subjects."

– John Wesley, Thoughts Upon Slavery, 1774.

The profits to be made from African slaves , the "self-replicating black gold", attracted the avarice of all the maritime nations, not just Portugal and Spain (the major slavers) but also Holland, Denmark, France and England. In 1560 the enterprising English captain John Hawkins began slaving voyages to Spanish America, where he made illegal sales to the Spanish colonies.

Over the course of the next three centuries, 54,000 sailings would carry over eleven million enslaved Africans to the New World (for numbers, see Thomas). Perhaps as many that survived the sailings died in transit. Half a million captives would be sold into the settlements of North America where they became the foundation upon which first the colonial and then the republican economy was built.

The search for cheap labour

"Africans were enslaved not because they were black but because, being nearest to the plantations, they were cheaper to transport, were available in greater numbers and were accustomed to agricultural labour in a hot climate ... But .. it was easier to justify inhuman cruelty when it was employed against people that it could be alleged were a lower form of human life or not human at all." – (Hart, p17)

At first, to tend the "cash crop" tobacco plants of Virginia, "indentured servants" were brought in from England as a source of cheap labour. Orphans were preferred, many of them kidnapped from the streets of London or other port cities of Europe, "servants" who in fact could be sold and traded.

Other, less than willing, migrants joined them: debtors and victims of the English courts, deposited in the "penal" colony of Georgia. In 1652, following the final defeat of the Stuart army at Worcester and the end of the English civil war, a stock of two thousand Scottish prisoners were sold to the plantations of Barbados and Virginia.

Similarly, in the aftermath of the Indian war in New England in 1675, enslaved Indians were transported by Puritan ship owners from Boston to the proprietary colonies of the South. The native Americans however easily escaped or succumbed to European diseases – but by then the African alternative had presented itself.

As early as 1619 the Dutch showed up off the coast of Virginia with a cargo of twenty Africans, which they traded for food, but the full potential of captive black labour was not immediately obvious:

"For the first two generations Africans were treated, it seems, much like other indentured servants. But after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 the planters could no longer be blind to the opportunities suggested by the example of the Caribbean sugar islands, which now took African slaves in huge numbers with correspondingly huge profits." – (Brogan, p28)

From 1621 the Dutch West Indies Company began importing blacks for servitude in farms along the Hudson valley. But dominance of the slave trade soon passed to the English and by the end of the 17th century, England was leading the world in the trafficking of human cargo.

Out of Africa

The contact established between English mercantilism and the ports of Africa transformed slave trading from a limited aspect of inter-tribal warfare into a capitalistic enterprise of global dimensions. A few hundred British aristocrats, motivated by commercial gain, established and controlled a worldwide industry and from it amassed family fortunes. Their accumulated capital financed banks and trading houses and stoked the Industrial Revolution.

At first, the Royal African Company enjoyed a monopoly in the trade and shipped several thousand slaves annually at immense profit. But by 1698 other envious English merchants had persuaded the government to open the slave trade to all. The number of slaves transported on English ships jumped dramatically, to more than 20,000 a year.

Thousands of blacks were brought to Britain by the slave ships. Far from being hidden as a degrading traffic in inhumanity, the trade had an exotic public visibility. It became the height of fashion for aristocratic ladies to have a black page, footman or personal servant and the great households of 18th century English society often had a staff of uniformed black servants, brought back from the plantations by naval captains, colonial governors and merchants.

So well established were the English in the slave trade that early in the new century (in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713) the British won the "asiento", an exclusive license to ship black slaves from Africa to the Spanish controlled territories of the Americas. The golden age of slaving had arrived. British ships would transport nearly 3 million African slaves before the prohibition on British involvement in 1807. American slavers would continued their trafficking for another half century.

The Whip and the Gospel

Whilst part of the Christian "world mission" was to Christianize the conquered and enslaved races, the plantation owners of Virginia and the Carolinas from the first were hostile to such evangelism. They feared that if the slaves became Christians there would be a clamour for their freedom. But as the number of slaves grew from thousands to tens of thousands more voices spoke of the Christian duty to instruct the heathen multitude in the true faith.

In 1660 the English king, Charles II, pronounced in favour of teaching Christianity to slaves. The message from the pulpit was hardly revolutionary. Slaves were chastened by an assurance that their servitude was ordained by God himself, that they must work hard, be honest, humble, and above all else, obedient. Though every man might be equal before God, in this world the black man's fate was to serve the white man.

The Virginia Assembly remained cautious. In 1667 it enacted its own bill specifically disavowing that baptism granted freedom to slaves. Nonetheless, in 1734 the religious fervour of the "Great Awakening" allowed blacks to join Methodist and Baptist Churches for the first time – with separate seating, of course – and in 1758 slaves in Lunenburg County formed the earliest black church in Virginia. The early years of the Republic saw a rapid Christianization of blacks, both slave and free.

Slavery in the Christian Republic

The crops which would transform the impoverished southern colonies of the U.S. into enclaves of wealth and leisure – tobacco, cotton, and rice – required many hands. This predisposed the region towards slavery because none but slaves would endure the unremitting toil in an agrarian wilderness.

The Declaration of Independence may have talked grandly of "all men created equal" but the Constitution recognized slavery:

"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." – Article IV, Section 2, paragraph 3.

At first, the emerging industrial centres of the North also deployed slaves but, with the mechanisation of factories, mines and mills, a more flexible and adaptable wage economy became established, devoid of the paternalism of a slave society and tapping successive waves of cheap immigrant labour.

By the early 1800s slavery had become a phenomenon primarily of the South but the northern economy continued to benefit both from the products of the South and from the needs of the southern economy, a symbiotic relationship recognized by a federal law as late as 1850 which required that runaway slaves, even those who had escaped to the North, were to be returned to their rightful "owners". Slave laws defined slaves as chattel, the same category assigned to horses and cows.

The opening of the southwest frontier after the Louisiana purchase and the War of 1812 rejuvenated the southern slave economy as the cotton belt spread from Alabama through to Arkansas and Texas. Some 400,000 slaves were traded and shipped from the upper to the deep South. Output of cotton soared from half a million bales in 1820 to more than four million by 1860, some 75% of the world's raw cotton output and earning over fifty per cent of U.S. export income (Rice, et al, p166). Slavery was not only Christian: it was highly profitable.

Spirits in the Sky – Jesus becomes a homie

"When I starts preachin' I ... had to preach what massa told me and he say tell them niggers iffen they obeys the massa they goes to Heaven but I knowed there's something better for them, but daren't tell them 'cept on the sly.

That I done lots. I tell 'em. iffen they keeps prayin' the Lord will set 'em free." – Black preacher.

The forced relocation of Africans to North America, with its cross mixing of tribes and language groups, effectively extinguished their worship of traditional African gods. Indeed, enslaved Africans lost rights not denied to slaves even in pre-Christian Europe, like speaking their own language and retaining their own names.

Yet enforced conversion must have disguised true sentiments. First encounters with Christians took the form of whip-bearing overseers and slave owners. Those not totally crushed by their incarceration must have retained vestiges of ancestral religion and fused the white man's Christianity with elements of traditional belief. For some, this meant Islam: merchants, travelling across the Sahara, had established a Muslim presence in Ghana, Senegal and Mali as early as the 12th century. Thus coastal tribes, slave-raiding into the interior, would have carried off Muslims.

In their land of exile, confronted by evangelical missionaries, Muslim slaves may have recalled stories from their own version of the Old Testament. They would have recognized a religion based on a written text, with creation myths, priest-healers, and an ethical system. To the enslaved, the promise of "life after death" had an obvious palliative value. And when in Church, they were not working. Though slave codes prohibited teaching slaves to read and write, reading the gospel was the path to literacy and the hope of eventual freedom.

Thus the slave, as well as the slave owner, found something useful in the fable of Christ. The story of the Israelites' successful flight from bondage, and the agony of Jesus "crucified but triumphant", were readily expropriated as messages of freedom. With the religious meeting the only form of organized activity permitted the slave, the Black church had value as the one institution that slaves could call their own. Not surprisingly, Black preachers led the earliest slave revolts – notably the Nat Turner rebellion of 1831 – and independent black churches led the struggle for liberty and civil rights of slaves and free blacks alike.

Jesus frees his Slaves?

In the latter half of the 18th century the rationalism of the Enlightenment began to permeate even the cloistered world of theology. Thoughts of "liberty, equality and fraternity" would soon cause convulsions in France. Even during the American Revolution property owners, whilst seeking liberty from the English king, feared "the mob". A whole race held in subjugation did not bode well for the future.

A minority of Christians – drawn mainly from the ranks of non-conformist movements in the North (Mennonites, Quakers, etc.) recognized that even though slavery was condoned by many passages in the Bible, it was profoundly immoral and contrary to the spirit, if not the words, of scripture. Distressed by the suffering of slaves (particularly during shipment), which now offended their Christian sensibilities, a movement began for the abolition of the trade and the institution of slavery.

Besides, in the fierce competition for memberships, congregations could be built from the lost black sheep. The Baptists, whose lack of educational requirements or complicated procedures for ordination made it especially easy for blacks to become ministers, quickly won a following among the black population. Free Blacks, no longer slaves but subject to fierce discrimination, themselves formed independent Methodist churches: the African Methodist Episcopal Methodist Church; the Union Church of Africans; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

The Confederacy – the Last True Christian civilization?

"On the lawfulness of holding slaves ... the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example."

– Rev Richard Furman, President, Baptist State Convention. Charleston, 24th December, 1822.

The Big House. The plantation lifestyle. The "Old South" was a world apart, a society of affected gentility and opulent leisure. In great white mansions "well-bred Christian gentlemen" drank, brawled and gambled whilst their wives and daughters idled away their lives in elegant Christian virtue. And beneath the surface a darker world, of pitiless exploitation and brutal white overseers, of whippings and lynchings, of masters taking sexual advantage of their slave women, and poor white sharecroppers venting their frustrations on a race and a class even more despised than themselves.

In response to the stinging rebukes of northern abolitionists, southern Christians rallied to the defence of their world. Their interpretation of scripture clung tenaciously to a literal understanding of the words – and the words were very clear. God endorsed slavery.

Indeed, Genesis 9.25,27 could be given a powerful new prescience. Shem was held to mean "dusky" as opposed to Japheth meaning "fair", thereby rendering "Japheth shall be enlarged and dwell in the tents of Shem" into a biblical prophesy of white displacement of the "red Indians". Completing this divine revelation was the subsequent enslavement of the black African descendents of "Ham"! The Bible was thus shown to be true in a literal sense and southern society validated as completely in accord with God's design.The slave owner thus felt certain that he was carrying out God's plan by buying and using slaves.

Christianity adapted to southern slave society like a domestic tabby cat reverting to a feral scavenger. White evangelicals moved from radicals on the margin to mainstream conservatives. They were established, they were respectable – and they were racist.

The Birth of Biblical Fundamentalism

" The Negroes thus imported were generally contented and happy ... Careless and mirthful by nature, they were eager to find a master when they reached the shore, and the cruel separations to which they were sometimes exposed, and which for the moment gave them excruciating agony, were forgotten at the sound of their rude musical instruments and in the midst of their noisy dances.

The great Architect had framed them both physically and mentally to fill the sphere in which they were thrown, and His wisdom and mercy combined in constituting them thus suited to the degraded position they were destined to occupy. Hence, their submissiveness, their obedience, their contentment."

– Thomas R. Cobb, An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America, 1858

Scripture itself provided ample justifications for slavery but there were practical arguments as well. As a "child race" the Negro needed a paternal guiding hand. By nature, lascivious and indolent the Negro needed stern moral guidelines, which Mosaic Law and the Abrahamic Covenant provided. By the institution of slavery, the African's rude disposition was both restrained and corrected. The South remained free from the strange new sects spawned in Northern and border states in the wake of the second "Great Awakening".

" Few of the remarkable religious "isms" have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such commotions farther North; and modern prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Rappists, Dunkers, Socialists, Fourrierists, and the like, keep themselves afar off".

– James Hammond, Governor of South Carolina, 1845. "Hammond's Letters on Slavery," The Proslavery Argument, 117; Q. in Peterson, 15.

Christian "issues" like temperance and benevolence, which so easily led to an anti-slavery stance, were viewed with disdain. While the new Christian movements convulsed the North, the South secured itself within a conservative, "fundamentalist" framework, interpreting the Bible as a literal guide not merely to faith but also to political, domestic and personal life. It was a world-view of Christian patriarchy, implacably hostile to modernism, rationalism and liberalism, all perceived as snares of the Devil.

Methodist and Baptist churches, which had hitherto straddled the "North-South" divide, were torn apart. The Anglican communion alone was able to survive the slavery debate without schism.

Slavery under threat

"New York had become a thieve's market where pirates disposed of loot taken on the high seas ... The British navy was refused permission to search any American slaver ... most slave ships, in the 1850s, not only flew the American flag but were owned by American citizens."

– (Chomsky, p21)

Slavery in the British empire came to an end after the 1831 Jamaican rebellion. The sedition had been led by a slave and Baptist preacher, Sam Sharpe, whose original plan had been the use of non-violent resistance to force abolition. In the event, violence took over and Sharp himself was hanged.

With the end to their own slave trade, the British were forced by economic necessity to press other nations to follow suit. A special fleet, the West Africa Squadrons, policed the coast of Africa searching for slave ships. Brazil was intimidated into compliance by the Royal Navy.

The greatest challenge came from slave ships flying the American flag. That nation would tear itself apart resolving the issue of slavery in the 1860s. Jesus fought on both sides, of course.

The Christianizing of the Americas

The Old World – Ablaze for Christ!

Late Antiquity > Middle Age (5th-10th centuries)

Middle Ages (10th-15th centuries)

Wars and Civil Wars for Christ! 16th century

Wars and Civil Wars for Christ! 17th century

1500-1600 New Spain – Old Horrors

1600-1750 Christ in the Colonies

1750-1850 Birth of a Nation

1850-1950 The Americanising of Christianity

1950-2005 Jesus Jihad

'Save' a friend ˇ e-mail this page

Copyright © 2005 by Kenneth Humphreys.
Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author and no material herein is sold for profit.

PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

2006-02-03T20:33:00.000+01:00

Nuclear Policy Research Institute Releases Analysis Report:

The Political, Intellectual, and Strategic Roots of the Current United States Defense Policy:

The Project for the New American Century

Washington, DC—The Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI) released a new report today examining the role of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the creation of the current U.S. defense policy. Titled The Political, Intellectual, and Strategic Roots of the Current United State Defense Policy: The Project for the New American Century, the 16-page report reviews the PNAC document, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, as a template for current U.S. nuclear policies.

NPRI Executive Director Julie R. Enszer said, “This report is an accessible analysis of the profound impact of the PNAC on the defense policies of the United States and, consequently, on the lives of all Americans.”

NPRI Founder and President Helen Caldicott, M.D., said from Australia, “The influence of the PNAC upon all aspects of current U.S. nuclear policies is undeniable. After reading this report it becomes obvious that the United States must remove the notion of ‘usable’ nuclear weapons from its military policies and work toward rapid elimination of nuclear weapons between Russia and the United States. Together these two countries own 97% of the 30,000 nuclear weapons on the planet today.

“We are all at risk because these nuclear arsenals stand on hair-trigger alert, ready for launching with the press of a button. This analysis of the PNAC makes for essential but chilling reading for the American people.”

The report is available online at www.nuclearpolicy.org or by calling NPRI at (202) 822-9800.(link 1); (LINK 2: DOWNLOAD PDF)

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Nuclear Policy Research Institute - Nuclear Week in Review (Vol. 80)

by Dr. John G. Duesler, Jr.

http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/NewsAll.cfm?Menu=News

After listening to William Kristol (co-founder of Project for a New American Century and long-time advocate for the removal of Saddam Hussein) being interviewed today by Terry Gross (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1901035), it became evident to me that the current White House administration has high-jacked many of the central tenets of the neo-conservative ideology as a grinder through which many in President Bush's cabinet could perpetuate their Cold War pedigree along which many there have been bred. We find Cold War influences interlaced in our U.S. "war-time" economy, suspension of civil rights during "war times," huge federal budget deficits to fight the "war on terrorism," and political leaders using their interpretations of "God's will" to justify the spreading of "freedom and democracy" around the globe.(...) (article continues - link)

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT AND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

2006-02-01T17:05:00.000+01:00

Dr. Helen Caldicott

Activist & Author

The world's leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement, Dr. Helen Caldicott is the founder of the Nobel Prize winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, and herself a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Both the Smithsonian Institute and Ladies Home Journal named her one of the most Influential Women of the Twentieth Century, and she has honorary degrees from nineteen universities. She divides her time between Australia and the United States, where she has devoted the last thirty years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age.(link)

In her timely new book, The New Nuclear Danger, Dr. Helen Caldicott looks at the indebtedness of the Bush Administration to the arms industry and warns of the incredible dangers inherent in allowing weapons manufacturers to dictate foreign policy. Recounting the history of government collusion with industry, Caldicott shows how the merging of weapons firms in the 1980's created hugely powerful 'death merchants', including Lockheed and others, ready to lobby politicians and manipulate public opinion on behalf of their corporate interests. (link)

Nuclear Madness and Missile Envy: The New Nuclear Danger

Dr. Caldicott demonstrates conclusively that the notion of nuclear survival is a fantasy, and that nuclear victory is an oxymoron. The evidence she presents stands to alert and mobilize millions of young people, helping them to understand the planetary threat posed by an aggressive weapons industry in a volatile world.
"Dr. Helen Caldicott has the rare ability to combine science with passion, logic with love, and urgency with humour...At the dark dawn of another war without end, it is once again time to listen up as she sounds the global alarm." - Naomi Klein, author of No Logo.(link)

AVAILABLE WEBCASTS

1. Webcast of talk by Dr. Helen Caldicott on April 28, 2003 at St. Andrews Wesley Church (link)

2. The New Nuclear Danger - Webcast of talk by Dr. Helen Caldicott on November 13, 2002 at
The First Parish Church in Cambridge (link)

1. After Hiroshima: The Question of Nuclear Weapons

Tadatoshi Akiba, mayor, Hiroshima

In August 1945, atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instantaneously killed an estimated 200,000 Japanese citizens and reduced those cities to rubble. Nearly sixty years later, people there continue to suffer from the physical and emotional after-effects. Led by Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima, Mayors for Peace strives to raise worldwide awareness about the need to abolish nuclear weapons. Representing more than 550 cities in 107 countries, the organization promotes solidarity toward the solution of problems that threaten peaceful coexistence among nations throughout the world.

Presented in association with The Japan Society of Boston and Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), this event features an exhibit of portraits and stories of Hiroshima A-bomb survivors, The Hibakusha Project, by local artist Jane Smith Bernhardt.

2. The Debate Over Nuclear North Korea

David Kang, professor, Tuck School of Business
Victor Cha, professor, government, Georgetown

Award-winning authors and government experts David Kang and Victor Cha debate their positions on what should be done about the nuclear build up in North Korea. Drawing on arguments proposed in their new book, Nuclear North Korea, the Dartmouth and Georgetown University professors discuss the volatile history of the region and strategies for diplomatic resolution.

David Kang is associate professor of government, and adjunct associate professor and research director at the Center for International Business at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. He has scholarly interests in both business-government relations and international relations, with a focus on Asia. At Tuck he teaches a course on doing business in Asia, and also manages teams of MBAs in the Tuck Global Consultancy Program that conduct in-country consulting projects for multinational companies in Asia. Professor Kang lived for over three years in Korea, has traveled extensively throughout Asia, and has consulted for US and Asian firms across the Pacific. Kang has been a visiting associate professor at Yale University, a visiting assistant professor at Korea University in Seoul, and a visiting professor at UC San Diego. He received an AB with honors from Stanford University (1988) and his PhD from Berkeley (1995).

Victor D. Cha is associate professor in the department of government and School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. and director of a new project at Georgetown on the Future of America's Alliances in Asia. He is the author of the book, Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Triangle, winner of 2000 Masayoshi Ohira prize for best book on East Asia. Dr. Cha is a two-time recipient of the Fulbright (Korea) and MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. He is formerly a John M. Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs and postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University. In 1999, he was the Edward Teller National Fellow for Security, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University and a recipient of the Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for Korea. Dr. Cha is an independent consultant to various branches of the US government.

FILMS :

HELEN'S WAR

Filmmaker: Anna Broinowski (released 2004, running time 52 min)

Dr. Helen Caldicott, firebrand anti-nuclear campaigner, celebrated author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is too alarmed to retire.
Certain that the White House's War on Terror is escalating the global nuclear arms race, she embarks on an explosive crusade across post 9/11 USA, armed with her fifth book, The New Nuclear Danger, and a furious determination to rally the American people against Star Wars and the new nuclear weapons labs before it is too late.
Tagging along is Caldicott's jaded niece, filmmaker Anna Broinowski, a post-punk fatalist who believes that nukes are inevitable - and wonders whether a straight talking dissident like Helen really can make a difference in George W. Bush's 'Land of The Free'.
Set against the volatile backdrop of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, Helen's War tracks Caldicott's roller-coaster tour as she vies with spin-savvy neo-conservatives for airtime, courts celebrity backers for her DC think-tank and battles to stop the bombing of Baghdad. We discover the vulnerable, humorous, passionate woman behind the crusade ... and what it really costs to fight for Peace (description from Ronin Films).
Winner of Best Direction (Documentary) at the 2004 Australian Film Institute Awards.
Winner of Best Documentary (Dendy Award) at the 2004 Sydney Film Festival. (link)

EIGHT MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

Filmmaker: Mary Benjamin (released 1980, running time 60 min) ISBN: 1559742364

This award-winning film tells the story of pediatrician, author, and activist Dr. Helen Caldicott and her struggle to inform and awaken the public to the medical dangers posed by nuclear power. It is also an inspiring drama of how one woman meets the demands of being wife, mother, physician and involved citizen. Filmed between 1978 and 1980, during a critical period of debate about the future of nuclear energy, this film presents a vivid portrait of a woman who became a key international figure in the movement for nuclear disarmament (description from Direct Cinema Limited).
Nominated for 1981 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. (link)

IF YOU LOVE THIS PLANET

Filmmaker: Terri Nash (released 1982, running time 26 min) ISBN: 1559742208

This powerful documentary records a lecture given to American students in 1981 by Dr. Helen Caldicott, founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. In the film, Dr. Caldicott outlines the effects of detonating a single twenty-megaton bomb, and traces the development of atomic weapons from the devastating bombs of the 1940s to the even more dangerous, apocalyptic weapons of today. If You Love This Planet provides an urgent warning that time is running out - that unless we shake off our indifference and work to prevent nuclear war, we stand a slim chance of surviving. With current nuclear weapons proliferation among Third World nations and potential terrorist groups, Dr. Caldicott's following words have added poignancy: "You're going to have to change the priorities of your life if you love this planet" (description from Direct Cinema Limited).
Winner of 1982 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject . (link)

SPECIAL LINKS TO RELATED POSTS INSIDE THIS BLOG:

1. MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

2. WHY WE FIGHT, A FILM BY EUGENE JARECKI

3.NUCLEAR WARFARE

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

2006-01-31T18:15:00.000+01:00

picture link

retrieved from wikipedia (link):

The term military-industrial complex usually refers to the combination of the U.S. armed forces, arms industry and associated political and commercial interests, which grew rapidly in scale and influence in the wake of World War II, although it can also be used to describe any such relationship of industry and military. It is sometimes used to refer to the iron triangle that is argued to exist among weapons makers/military contractors (industry), The Pentagon (military), and the United States Congress (government).

1. Origin

The term was first used publicly by President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, indicating the essential role that U.S. Congress plays in propagating the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to avoid offending members of the legislative branch of the federal government. The author of the term was Eisenhower's speech-writer Malcolm Moos.

Vietnam War-era activists referred frequently to the concept. In the late 1990s James Kurth asserted that "[b]y the mid-1980s . . . the term had largely fallen out of public discussion," and opined that "[w]hatever the power of arguments about the influence of the military-industrial complex on weapons procurement during the Cold War, they are much less relevant to the current era."

Contemporary students and critics of American militarism continue to refer to and employ the term, however. For example, historian Chalmers Johnson uses words from the second, third, and fourth paragraphs quoted above from Eisenhower's address as an epigraph to Chapter Two ("The Roots of American Militarism") of a recent volume on this subject (The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004], p. 39).

The expressions permanent war economy and war corporatism are related concepts that have also been used in association with this term.

Although the term was originally coined to describe U.S. circumstances, it has been applied, by extension, to the corresponding situations in other countries. It was not unusual to see it used to describe the arms production industries and political structures of the Soviet Union, and it has also been used for other countries with an arms-producing economy, such as Wilhelminian Germany, Britain, France and post-Soviet Russia. The expression is also sometimes applied to the European Union.

2. See also

War is a Racket (book by Smedley Butler)
Why We Fight (documentary by Eugene Jarecki)
Corporatism
Militarism
Security-industrial complex

3. Sources

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Public Papers of the Presidents, 1035-40. 1960.
________. "Farewell Address." In The Annals of America. Vol. 18. 1961-1968: The Burdens of World Power, 1-5. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968.
________. President Eisenhower's Farewell Address, Wikisource.
Hartung, William D. "Eisenhower's Warning: The Military-Industrial Complex Forty Years Later." World Policy Journal 18, no. 1 (Spring 2001).
Kurth, James. "Military-Industrial Complex." In The Oxford Companion to American Military History, ed. John Whiteclay Chambers II, 440-42. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Nelson, Lars-Erik. "Military-Industrial Man." In New York Review of Books 47, no. 20 (Dec. 21, 2000): 6.

4. References

Cult television show The X-Files displayed a nameless conspiracy of the American government, dominated by the Military-industrial complex's sinister machinations. This conspiracy including everything from tobacco lobbyists to extraterrestrials. Not surprisingly, some conspiracy theorists felt the show was created to disenfranchise their distrust and hide the real conspiracy. In the third season episode of the series "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" series lead David Duchovny satirizes this by accusing a writer's search for the truth regarding a bizarre alien abuduction as an effort made for "the military-industrial-entertainment complex."

5. External links

SPECIAL LINKS TO RELATED POSTS INSIDE THIS BLOG:

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

2006-01-25T18:44:00.000+01:00

Retrieved from Wikipedia:

1. The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival in the United States, and ranks amongst the top five events of its type in the world. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the U.S. [1] Held annually in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah as well as at the Sundance Ski Resort, the festival is the premiere showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival comprises competitive sections for American and independent dramatic and documentary films, and a group of non-competitive showcase sections, including the Sundance Online Film Festival. Controversially so, the festival has also become the premiere showcase for sponsors and "swag giveaways".

History

Sundance was started in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah. At the time, the main focus of the event was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions; however it also included a small program of films made outside the Hollywood system, commonly known as independent films.

Over the next several years factors helped propel the growth of Utah/US Film Festival. First was the involvement of actor Robert Redford. Redford, a Utah resident, became the festival's inaugural chairman and having his name associated with Sundance gave the festival great attention.

Second, the festival moved from September to January. The move from late summer to mid-winter was reportedly done on the advice of Hollywood director Sydney Pollack, who suggested that running a film festival in a ski resort during winter would draw more attention from Hollywood.

Management of the festival was taken over by the Sundance Institute, a non-profit organization, in 1985, and in 1991 the festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival. Many famous independent filmmakers, including Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, James Wan and Jim Jarmusch had their big break at Sundance. It is also responsible for bringing wider attention to films such as Saw, The Blair Witch Project, El Mariachi, Clerks., Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and Napoleon Dynamite.

Within the last ten years, corporate America has also taken notice of the festival by setting up independent marketing operations during the fesitval. This has not pleased the Sundance Film Festival, who have tried various ways to encourage brands to officially sponsor the festival, instead of creating their own marketing event. The festival has also controversially become a press event for celebrities, with stars like Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and Britney Spears attending the festival.

In contrast to the "brand dance," the first non-profit space created independently and dedicated to promoting the gay and lesbian films and gay and lesbian filmmakers at the festival made an appearance at the festival in 2003. The Queer Lounge was a huge success that was created on a shoestring budget with a few corporate sponsors. The Queer Lounge has become an interesting addition to the festival festivities, as it is open to everyone, gay, straight, bisexual or otherwise who stop by during the day to learn about films in the festival with gay-themed content, attend panel discussions or just warm up at nice hospitality suite. The space is also used for the press to interview celebrities with films in the festival.

The Festival is named after The Sundance Kid, Redford's character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

WHY WE FIGHT - A Film by Eugene Jarecki

2006-01-25T12:41:00.000+01:00

Why We Fight - Film site - synopsis

SPECIAL LINKS TO RELATED POSTS INSIDE THIS BLOG:

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT AND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

RISK PERCEPTION

2006-01-14T17:30:00.001+01:00

“How politicians view the public:

* Incapable of grasping complex issues
* Incapable of forming relevant views
* Believe anything they read in newspapers
* Opinions are shaped by narrow selfish concerns
* Apathetic
* Will not take the time or trouble to consider anything that does not affect them directly

In short gullible, selfish and irresponsible”

A. Coote, J. Franklin (10)

Fright /Dread Factors:

The following perceptions may make a risk seem less acceptable ie., more worrying:

* risk is involuntary
* risk seen as inequitable
* risk seen as inescapable
* source of risk unfamiliar or novel
* risk man-made rather than natural
* hidden and irreversible damage
* danger to small children or future generations
* form of harm arouses much dread
* victims identifiable not anonymous
* risk appears to be poorly understood by science
* contradictory statements from responsible sources.

Peter Bennett, David Coles, Anne McDonald, 1999 (37)

(link)

1. Assessment of nuclear risk

2. Bhopal disaster

3. Chernobyl accident

4. Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety Detailed articles on nuclear watchdog activities in the US

5. Criticality nuclear accident

6. Goiânia nuclear accident

7. International Nuclear Events Scale

8. List of civilian nuclear accidents

9. List of civilian radiation accidents

10. List of countries with nuclear weapons

11. List of military nuclear accidents

12. List of nuclear accidents

13. List of nuclear and radiation accidents

14. List of nuclear reactors

15. List of radiation accidents and other events causing radiation casualties

16. Norwegian heavy water sabotage

17. NTI: Nuclear Threat Initiative

18. Nuclear meltdown

19. Nuclear proliferation

20. Nuclear risks

21. Nuclear Weapons Data

22. Official List of accidents involving nuclear weapons from the UK Ministry of Defence

23. Opinion essay arguing for a totally "nuclear-free" world

24. Osirak- Iraq reactor destroyed pre-emptively by Israeli air-strike, 7 June 1981

25. Radiation

26. Radiation poisoning

27. Radioactive contamination

28. Radiological Incidents Database

29. Three Mile Island nuclear accident

30. Ukrainian missiles 'gone missing'

31. Windscale nuclear accident

IMAGES (from top):

- David Ropeik, former journalist and lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health, describes the subtle balance in risk communication between emotions (fear), facts and trust, as a see-saw in which trust is the fulcrum and facts and fear balance against each other at opposing ends.

(link)

- Public perception of risks in terms of risk space quadrants (Morgan, 1993)

(link)

NUCLEAR WARFARE

2006-01-13T13:16:00.001+01:00

Historical close calls

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, an apocalyptic war between the United States and USSR was considered likely. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 is generally thought to be the historical point at which the risk of World War III was closest. Other potential starts have included the following (see External links below for further examples):

* July 26th, 1956 – March, 1957 — Suez Crisis: the conflict pitted Egypt against an alliance between the French Fourth Republic, the United Kingdom and Israel. The USSR threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, the US became afraid of a larger war, and persuaded the British and French to withdraw.

* October 24, 1973 — As the Yom Kippur War was winding down, a Soviet threat to intervene on Egypt's behalf caused the United States to go to DEFCON 3.

* November 9, 1979, when the US made emergency retaliation preparations after NORAD saw on-screen indications that a full-scale Soviet attack had been launched. No attempt was made to use the "red telephone" hotline to clarify the situation with the USSR and it was not until early-warning radar systems confirmed no such launch had taken place that NORAD realised that a computer system test had caused the display errors. A Senator at NORAD at the time described an atmosphere of absolute panic. A GAO investigation led to the construction of an off-site test facility, to prevent similar mistakes subsequently. A fictionalized version of this incident was filmed as the movie WarGames, in which the test system is inadvertently triggered by a teenage hacker believing himself to be playing a video game.

* September 26, 1983, when Soviet early warning system showed that a US ICBMs attack had been launched. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, in command of the monitoring facility put the warning down to computer error and did not notify his superiors, who would have most probably launched a counter-attack.

* November 1983: Exercise Able Archer — The USSR mistook a test of NATO's nuclear-release procedures as a fake cover for a NATO attack and subsequently raised its nuclear alert level. It was not until afterwards that the US realized how close it had come to nuclear war. At the time of the exercise the Soviet Politburo was without a healthy functioning head due to the failing health of then leader Yuri Andropov, which is thought to have been one of the contributing factors to the Soviet paranoia over the exercise.

* January 25, 1995, when Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research was detected from Spitzbergen and thought to be an attack on Russia, launched five minutes from Moscow. Norway had notified the world that it would be making the launch, but the Russian Defense Ministry had neglected to notify those monitoring Russia's nuclear defense systems.

In addition to the above there are two other points during the Cold War that may have resulted in world war. These, however, are not generally listed as they do not relate to the United States-Soviet Union rivalry, but rather the events following the Sino-Soviet Split of 1960. The ideological split between Maoist communists (represented primarily by China) and Stalinist communists (represented primarily by the Soviet Union) divided the entire communist movement worldwide — which controlled governments or significant rebel factions on most continents. Thus a war between China and the Soviet Union may well have resulted in world war, whilst not necessarily involving the U.S. and the capitalist west (although the U.S. may have opportunistically intervened whilst its two communist rivals were distracted by war with each other). The two points the communist powers almost entered into all-out war were:

* March, 1969, when border clashes broke out between Soviet and Chinese troops over Zhen Bao Island in the Ussuri River. In total the Soviets suffered about 90 casualties to the 800 for the Chinese. At the time there were almost one and a half million troops deployed along the border.
* 1978 and 1979, in which the pro-Soviet Vietnam invaded the pro-China Cambodia and removed Pol Pot. China in turn invaded Vietnam in retaliation and the Soviets denounced this action strongly, although it fell short of taking action. The next year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Chinese claimed this was a continuation of a strategy of encircling China with Soviet allies that had begun the previous year with the invasion of Cambodia.

Some examples of close calls are more rhetorical than real. In 1999 NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, ordered British Army Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson to hinder Russian troops from occupying the Pristina airport during the Kosovo War, "if necessary with military force"; Jackson refused to carry out the order with the words: "I won't start World War III for you!"

(link)

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von Neumann said it was "absolutely certain (1) that there would be a nuclear war; and (2) that everyone would die in it" (underline added to quote from: The Nature of the Physical Universe – 1979, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0471031909, in H. Putnam’s essay The place of facts in a world of values - page 113). This example illustrates why respectable scientists are very reluctant to go on record with extinction predictions: they can never be proven right. (The quotation is repeated by Leslie (1996) on page 26, on the subject of nuclear war annihilation, which he still considered a significant risk – in the mid 1990s.)

(link)

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Many people, including many of the scientists involved in the bomb project, were shocked by the devastation that the bombs produced, reports of which filtered into the United States over time. The pride which Oppenheimer had felt after the successful "Trinity" test was soon replaced by guilt and horror. "In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish," he later famously said, "the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose." Los Alamos was awarded the Army-Navy "Excellence" Award shortly thereafter, and in his acceptance speech for the lab, Oppenheimer warned that:

"If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of this world must unite or they will perish."

(link)

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In 1945, our collective state of mind was despair. World War II touched every inhabitable continent, leaving more than 50 million dead and millions of others as refugees. The conflict had spanned more than half a decade. It would effectively end during an interval of 43 seconds--the time it took for the atomic bomb to explode over Hiroshima after it was released by the Enola Gay on August 6. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, followed by Japan's surrender.

Sixty years later, we live in a world where the capacity for mass destruction is no longer limited to superpowers--or, for that matter, to nations. Our collective state of mind is one of vulnerability. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not just historical events but portents of a possible future for any city, anywhere. And it is through that lens that we find ourselves looking back at the decision of President Harry S. Truman and its legacy.

(link)

1. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

2. Doomsday device

3. Effects of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War

10. Nuclear Test Image Gallery

11.Nuclear Warfare