There is a worldwide conspiracy being orchestrated by an extremely powerful and influential group of genetically-related individuals (at least at the highest echelons) which include many of the world's wealthiest people, top political leaders, and corporate elite, as well as members of the so-called Black Nobility of Europe (dominated by the British Crown) whose goal is to create a One World (fascist) Government, stripped of nationalistic and regional boundaries, that is obedient to their agenda. Their intention is to effect complete and total control over every human being on the planet and to dramatically reduce the world's population by 5.5 Billion people. While the name New World Order is a term frequently used today when referring to this group, it's more useful to identify the principal organizations, institutions, and individuals who make up this vast interlocking spiderweb of elite conspirators.
The Illuminati is the oldest term commonly used to refer to the 13 bloodline families (and their offshoots) that make up a major portion of this controlling elite. Most members of the Illuminati are also members in the highest ranks of numerous secretive and occult societies which in many cases extend straight back into the ancient world. The upper levels of the tightly compartmentalized (need-to-know-basis) Illuminati structural pyramid include planning committees and organizations that the public has little or no knowledge of. The upper levels of the Illuminati pyramid include secretive committees with names such as: the Council of 3, the Council of 5, the Council of 7, the Council of 9, the Council of 13, the Council of 33, the Grand Druid Council, the Committee of 300 (also called the "Olympians") and the Committee of 500 among others.
In 1992, Dr John Coleman published Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300. With laudable scholarship and meticulous research, Dr Coleman identifies the players and carefully details the Illuminati agenda of worldwide domination and control. On page 161 of the Conspirators Hierarchy, Dr Coleman accurately summarizes the intent and purpose of the Committee of 300 as follows:
"A One World Government and one-unit monetary system, under permanent non-elected hereditary oligarchists who self-select from among their numbers in the form of a feudal system as it was in the Middle Ages. In this One World entity, population will be limited by restrictions on the number of children per family, diseases, wars, famines, until 1 billion people who are useful to the ruling class, in areas which will be strictly and clearly defined, remain as the total world population.
There will be no middle class, only rulers and the servants. All laws will be uniform under a legal system of world courts practicing the same unified code of laws, backed up by a One World Government police force and a One World unified military to enforce laws in all former countries where no national boundaries shall exist. The system will be on the basis of a welfare state; those who are obedient and subservient to the One World Government will be rewarded with the means to live; those who are rebellious will simple be starved to death or be declared outlaws, thus a target for anyone who wishes to kill them. Privately owned firearms or weapons of any kind will be prohibited."
The sheer magnitude and complex web of deceit surrounding the individuals and organizations involved in this conspiracy is mind boggling, even for the most astute among us. Most people react with disbelief and skepticism towards the topic, unaware that they have been conditioned (brainwashed) to react with skepticism by institutional and media influences that were created by the Mother of All mind control organizations: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. Author and de-programmer Fritz Springmeier (The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines ) says that most people have built in "slides" that short circuit the mind's critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. "Slides", Springmeier reports, is a CIA term for a conditioned type of response which dead ends a person's thinking and terminates debate or examination of the topic at hand. For example, the mention of the word "conspiracy" often solicits a slide response with many people. (Springmeier has co-authored three books on trauma-based programming which detail how the Illuminati employs highly tuned and extrememly sophisticated Mind Control (MC) training programs that begin the programming process while the intended victim is still within the womb. Mind Control is a much greater problem than most people realize. According to Cisco Wheeler, a former Illuminati mind control programmer, there are 10 million people who have been programmed as mind controlled slaves using trauma-based MC programs with names like Monarch and MK Ultra. The newer, non-trauma, electronic means of MC programming that grew out of the Montauk Project, may include millions more. Al Bielek, who played a principle role in the development of the Montauk Project, said that there likely 10 million victims of Montauk style mind control programming worldwide, the majority located in the USA. He also said that there are covert Montauk Programming 'Centers' in every major city in the U.S. )
What most Americans believe to be "Public Opinion" is in reality carefully crafted and scripted propaganda designed to elicit a desired behavioral response from the public. Public opinion polls are really taken with the intent of gauging the public's acceptance of the Illuminati's planned programs. A strong showing in the polls tells the Illuminati that the programing is "taking", while a poor showing tells the NWO manipulators that they have to recast or "tweak" the programming until the desired response is achieved. While the thrust and content of the propaganda is decided at Tavistock, implementation of the propaganda is executed in the United States by well over 200 'think tanks' such as the Rand Corporation and the Brookings Institute which are overseen and directed by the top NWO mind control organization in the United States, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California.
The NWO global conspirators manifest their agenda through the skillful manipulation of human emotions, especially fear. In the past centuries, they have repeatedly utilized a contrivance that NWO researcher and author David Icke has characterized in his latest book, The Biggest Secret, as Problem, Reaction, and Solution.
The technique is as follows: Illuminati strategists create the Problem- by funding , assembling, and training an "opposition" group to stimulate turmoil in an established political power (sovereign country, region, continent, etc.) that they wish to impinge upon and thus create opposing factions in a conflict that the Illuminati themselves maneuvered into existence. In recent decades, so called "opposition" groups are usually identified in the media as 'freedom fighters' or 'liberators' (recently the KLA-Kosovo Liberation Army).
At the same time, the leader of the established political power where the conflict is being orchestrated is demonized and, on cue, referred to as 'another Hitler' (take your pick: Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Kadaffi, etc.). The 'freedom fighters' are not infrequently assembled from a local criminal element (i.e. KLA, drug traffickers). In the spirit of true Machiavellian deceit, the same NWO strategists are equally involved in covertly arming and advising the leader of the established power as well (the Illuminati always profits from any armed conflict by loaning money, arming, and supplying all parties involved in a war).
The conflict is drawn to the world stage by the controlled media outlets with a barrage of photos and video tape reports of horrific and bloody atrocities suffered by innocent civilians. The cry goes up "Something has to be done!" And That is the desired Reaction (note: the same technique is presently being used to bring about gun control in the United States).
The NWO puppeteers then provide the Solution by sending in UN 'Peace Keepers' (Bosnia) or a UN 'Coalition Force' (Gulf War) or NATO Bombers and then ground troops (Kosovo). Once installed, the 'peace keepers' never leave (Bosnia, Kosovo). The idea is to have NWO controlled ground troops in all major countries or strategic areas where significant resistance to the New World Order takeover is likely to be encountered.
East Timor, Indosnesia. (9/14/99) Virtually , the same strategy used to occupy Kosovo with UN/NATO troops was applied by the NWO manipulators to take military control of East Timor. Once again, the same morality play is trotted out for public consumption: the local evil and demonic Indonesian Army trained militias responsible for the slaughter of innocent civilians following the August 30 vote for Independence (from Indonesian control), must be stopped at all costs. This time, Australia (to keep up the appearance of an 'international' humantarian effort) will lead the charge with 'peacekeeping' troops. Of course, it didn't take long for Madeline Albright to announce that US 'support assets' will be part of the "UN Peacekeeping Team". In a front page story in the LA Times (9/13/99), Mike Jendrzejczyk of Human Rights Watch (an Illuminati front group) in Washington DC said that it's "crucial" that "peacekeepers have the authority to disarm militia forces and any Indonesian soldiers actively working with them". ]
The local, sovereign military force is either defeated (i.e. Yugoslavia) or, as in the case of the United States itself, replaced by foreign UN "Partnership For Peace" (PFP) troops who take over the jobs of US soldiers who have been sent overseas on 'peacekeeping' missions. In addition to being killed in ground conflicts on foreign soil, US military forces will likely be reduced in the next few years through disease induced attrition (i.e. from mandatory Anthrax Vaccinations required of all US military personnel). These vaccinations will, in all probability, eventually produce the symptoms of the so-called Gulf War Illness, which was acquired by a certain percentage of Gulf War soldiers who were given a "special" anthrax vaccine (intended by the Illuminati/CIA as a test run to ascertain how quickly (and fatally) the disease would progress with a substantial population of healthy young men and women).
The corporate portion of the NWO pyramid seems to be dominated by international bankers and the big pharmaceutical cartels, as well as other major multinational corporations. The Royal Family of England, namely Queen Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor, (who are, in fact, descendants of the German arm of European Royalty -the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family-changed the name to Windsor in 1914 ), are high level players, along with the British oligarchy which controls the upper strata of the Illuminati. The decision making Illuminati nerve centers of this effort are in the London (especially the City of London), Basel Switzerland, and Brussels (NATO headquarters).
The United Nations, along with all the agencies working under the UN umbrella, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), are full time players in this scheme. Similarly, NATO is a military tool of the NWO.
The leaders of all major industrial countries like the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, etc. (E.g. members of the "G7/G8" ) are active and fully cooperative participants in this conspiracy. In this century, the degree of control exerted by the Illuminati has advanced to the point that only certain hand-picked individuals, who are groomed and selected by the Illuminati are even eligible to become the prime minister or president of countries like England, Germany, or The United States. It didn't matter whether Bill Clinton or Bob Dole won the Presidency in 1996, the results would have been the same (except maybe for Zipper Gate ). Both men are playing on the same team for the same ball club. Anyone who isn't a team player is taken out: i.e.President Kennedy, Ali Bhutto (Pakistan) and Aldo Moro (Italy). More recently, Admiral Borda and William Colby were also killed because they were either unwilling to go along with the conspiracy to destroy America, weren't cooperating in some capacity, or were attempting to expose/ thwart the Takeover agenda.
Most of the major wars, political upheavals, and economic depression/recessions of the past 100 years (and earlier) were carefully planned and instigated by the machinations of these elites. They include The Spanish-American War (1898), World War I and World War II; TheGreat Depression; the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; the Rise of Nazi Germany; the Korean War; the Vietnam War; the 1989-91"fall" of Soviet Communism, the 1991 Gulf War; and the recent War in Kosovo. Even the French Revolution was an orchestrated into existence by the Barvaian Illuminati and the House of Rothchild.
FEMA
In America, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) was created in 1979 under Presidential Memorandum 32 authored for President Carter by Prof. Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor and former FEMA Advisory Board chairman. Huntington wrote the Seminal Peace for the Trilateral Commission in the mid 70's, in which he criticized democracy and economic development as outdated ideas. As co-author of the book, Crisis in Democracy, Huntington wrote:
"We have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy. A government which lacks authority will have little ability short of cataclysmic crisis to impose on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary."
Huntington's ideas were rewritten into National Security Decision Directive #47 (NSDD47), which was enacted in July 1982 by President Reagan. Treated as a passing footnote by the media, this law identified legitimate areas to be upgraded to maintain national defense, but it also laid the groundwork for Emergency Mobilization Preparedness, a plan under which existing socio/economic regulations or other legal constraints would be waived in the event of a national emergency. This plan was further strengthened in Public Law 101-647, signed by President Bush in November 1990.What it boils down to is this: in the event that the President declares a national emergency, for any reason (from major earthquakes to increased international tensions or economic /financial crisis of any stripe), FEMA can then, at their discretion, implement Executive Orders 10995 through 11005. These Executive Orders permit a takeover by FEMA of local, state, and national governments and the suspension of constitutional guarantees. FEMA will have the authority to exert any sort of control that it deems necessary upon the American public. A trained National Police Force, formally referred to by the name of Multi Jurisdictional Task Force (MJTF), wearing black uniforms and composed of:
1. specially selected US military personnel
2. foreign military units carrying United Nations ID cards, and
3. specially trained existing police groups from larger metropolitan American cities.
These members of the MJTF will implement and enforce martial law under the direction and controlof FEMA. The President and Congress are out of the loop.
FEMA is the Trojan Horse by which the New World Order will implement overt, police-state control over the American populace.
War on Drugs
The "War on Drugs" is a cruel joke. The US government, specifically the CIA, is the biggest 'drug lord' on the planet. Drug money is used to pay for innumerable 'black projects', including the construction of huge underground cities housing both humans and aliens working with the secret US government.
The instigation of a trumped-up war as a cover for amassing fortunes can be dated back to at least the 12th Century when only a core group of nine members of an Illuminati group called the Knights Templar, the military arm of an Illuminati secret society known as the Priory of Sion, kicked off the The Crusades that lasted for over a century and a half. A rift later developed between the Templars and the Priory of Sion when Jerusalem was lost to Saracen Turks in 1187. In 1307, the king of France, Philippe the Fair (a Merovingian Illuminati), coveted the wealth and was jealous of the Templars' power. The French king, being a puppet of the Priory of Sion, set out to arrest all the Templars in France on October 13. While many Templars were seized and tortured, including their Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, many other Templars (who had been tipped off) escaped. They eventually resurfaced in Portugal, in Malta (as the Knights of Malta) and later in Scotland as The Scottish Rites of Free Masonry.
The acquisition and consolidation of ever greater wealth, natural resources, total political power, and control over others are the motivating forces which drives the decisions of the Illuminati. The toll in human suffering and the loss of innocent lives are non issues for these individuals, who are aligned with very dark and malevolent 4th dimensional aliens. The dominant group of 4th dimentional malevolent aliens controlling and manipulating the human Iluminati are known as Draconians or Drakos Reptilians. Not all alien reptilians are of a negative spiritual orientation.
Mind Control
Recent revelations from deprogrammed Illuminati (government) mind controlled individuals such as Arizona Wilder (The Biggest Secret), Cisco Wheeler ( The Illuminati Formula to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Control Slave), Cathy O'Brien (Trance Formation of America), and Brice Taylor (Thanks for the Memories) leave NO DOUBT that the upper levels of the Illuminati engage in Satanic rituals which usually include the killing of young children, the drinking of human blood and the consuming of flesh and human organs.
The details of the Illuminati conspiracy are brilliantly laid out in the books of David Icke (Tales from the Time Loop, Children of the Matrix, Alice in Wonderland and the World Trace Center Disaster, The Biggest Secret, The Truth Shall Set You Free, and I am Me, I am Free; and in three books by Dr. John Coleman (Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of The Committee of 300; One World Order: Socialist Dictatorship; and Diplomacy by Deception
The New World Order is no longer a conspiracy theory;
it is an established fact.
The "New World Order" has been a prominent conspiracy theory for decades[1]. Here and now, as the new millennium dawns, the New World Order has become a globally recognised political concept,[2] and as such it can no longer be regarded simply as a theory.
Mankind is now literally entering a new age, the Age of Aquarius, according to the ancient zodiacal calendar which is as old as human civilisation.[3] Aquarius is associated by astrologers with brotherhood, or fraternity, which is the cornerstone of Freemasonry.
New World Order
The previous zodiacal age was that of Pisces. The zodiacal symbol of Pisces, the fish, is also an important Christian symbol, and it is noteworthy that the age of Pisces coincided with the age of Christianity. During the previous age dates were written with the suffix "A.D." which stands for "Anno Domini" or "Year of Our Lord" denoting the era of Christ. Alternatively, dates were denoted "B.C." - "Before Christ".
In 2002 AD, as the Age of Pisces was giving way to the new age of Aquarius, the decision was officially taken to replace the BC/AD date referencing system with the new CE/BCE references which stand for "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era".[4] What better way for the New Secular Order to proclaim the begginning of its reign than to secularise the way in which dates are recorded, replacing the Christian dating system of the old Order with a new, secular system for the for the Aquarian age?
Consider the official Great Seal of the Unites States of America[5], which is most commonly seen on the back of the one the dollar bill[6] - probably the world's most familiar banknote. On the US Great Seal, beneath the ancient Pyramid, is the Latin inscription: "Novus Ordo Seclorum". The official translation of this motto is "A New Order of the Ages". The Latin word "Novus" means "New", and "Ordo" means "Order". The Latin word "Seclorum" and its English equivalent "Secular" both share the same three alternative definitions: (1) "Secular" - without religion; (2) "Worldly" - of this world; and (3) "From century to century" - or from age to age. Thus, the motto "Novus Ordo Seclorum" has three different but equally valid translations:
* New Secular Order
* New World Order
* New Order of the Ages
The different meanings of Novus Ordo Seclorum are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they are synergistic. The alternative translations are all as pertinent today as they were "at the beginning of the new American era in 1776." Let this be a testament the wisdom of the men who chose these words, for they demonstrate the esoteric power of language and the written Word.
If secret societies are able to display such esoteric and Masonic symbolism so prominently for us all to see, then perhaps this is indeed the age of Freemasonry. Amen.
Amen-Ra.
REFERENCES, NOTES & FURTHER READING
1. The NWO conspiracy theory that "everyone is talking about as we draw closer to the year 2000", BBC Radio 5, Conspiracy programme, October 1998.
2.a. U.S. President, George Bush (Snr) called for "a New World Order", ABC News, January 1991.
2.b. U.K. Prime Minister, Tony Blair's, "push for New World Order", BBC News, October 2001.
2.c. U.K. Prime Minister, Tony Blair, "set out his vision for a New World Order", BBC News, October 2001.
2.d. U.K. Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and "new, globalised world order", BBC News, January 2002.
2.e. U.K. Prime Minister, Tony Blair, calls for New World Order, Evening Standard newspaper, January 2002.
2.f. U.S. President Bush (Snr) "proclaimed the beginning of 'a new world order', according to the website for washington executives.
2.g. President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, announced in 1999: "We will make our due contribution to the construction of a new world order", BBC News, 25 June 1999.
2.h. CBC News website talks about President Bush, globalisation, and "a new world order".
2.i. Experts discuss "Bioterrorism in the New World Order", University of California official website.
2.j. ABC News website politics section mentions that "New World Order" arrived during office of U.S. President, George Bush (Snr).
2.k. A. R. Epperson, 1990. The New World Order. USA: Publius Press, Inc.
2.l. W. Still, 1990. New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies. Louisiana, USA: Huntingdon House Publishers.
2.m. W. F. Jasper, et al. , 1992. The United Nations and the Emerging New World Order. USA: American Opinion Books.
3. Knight et al., 2001. Uriel's Machine: Uncovering the Secrets of Stonehenge, Noah's Flood and the Dawn of Civilization. USA: Fair Winds Press.
4.a. Evening Standard (UK), "AD and BC become CE/BCE", 19 February 2002.
In what could be seen as their greatest victory to date, politically correct campaigners have succeeded in getting schools to scrap the Christian calendar.
Breaking with centuries of tradition, the terms "BC" and "AD" are to be replaced with a system known as the Common Era. The two dating schemes are identical and both use the birth of Christ as their starting points, but the secular version does not acknowledge this.
The Latin term Anno Domini, meaning in the year of our Lord, becomes Common Era, or CE, and Before Christ becomes Before the Common Era, or BCE.
The term "common" refers to the fact that the Christian calendar is the most frequently used around the world. The move has sparked outrage among Church leaders. The Rev Rod Thomas of Reform, the Church of England's evangelical network, said: "What they are attempting to do is educate children into believing there is a way of measuring our calendar that takes its dates from an event, the significance of which, they are trying to deny.
"The whole of the Western calendar has been based on BC and AD. To change that for no good reason is to do a disservice to our youngsters."
Colin Hart, from the Christian Institute, said: "This is ridiculous. Between three and four per cent of people in Britain are of a non-Christian faith. This is about white liberals imposing political correctness in schools to ensure children are cut off from the past, for fear of upsetting someone.
"Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to offend the vast majority."
Panels comprising teachers, councillors and religious representatives advise councils in England and Wales on religious education syllabuses.
But defending the change, a spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said: "It's not a question of one way is wrong and one is right, more a question of which is most commonly used.
"CE/BCE is becoming an industry standard among historians.
"Pupils have to be able to recognise these terms when they come across them."
4.b. Daily Telegraph (UK), "History has to be rewritten as school bans BC and AD", 13 December 2002.
... Church officials are also upset by the change. David Guest, communications officer for the Diocese of Chichester, said: "BC and AD have been used for centuries and have not upset people. They do have Christian significance but they have historical significance as well. We would be disappointed if these new terms became the norm."
4.c. Sunday Times (UK), "The Lord isn't PC in the year 2000CE", front-page, 23 January 2000.
"THE Home Office has raised the prospect of scrapping the phrase Anno Domini (AD) in favour of the politically correct Common Era. Outraged churchmen are already mustering to frustrate the advocates of change, led by academics and civil servants..."
4.c. The New American (US), "The New World Religion", Vol. 18, No. 19, 23 Sep 2002.
Presented to the world as a mystical revelation, the UN Earth Charter is actually a diabolical blueprint for global government.
"My hope is that this charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a 'Sermon on the Mount,' that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
Millions of Americans were justifiably shocked and outraged over the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' notorious ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance. "Can our courts really have sunk this low?" people asked. "How can little Johnny and Suzie violate the Constitution by uttering the words 'under God' while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in a public school?"
Yet that is what the Court said in its June 26th decision. This ruling was a continuation of an ongoing subversive campaign aimed at expunging all mention of God and all Christian symbols from the public sphere. Judicial activists have ordered our students not to invoke the Almighty's name in prayer on school property. Posting the Ten Commandments on classroom walls is also supposedly a major no-no. Traditional Christmas carols with religious themes are out, as are Nativity scenes. Christmas and Easter vacations have been de-Christianized to, respectively, winter and spring breaks. Many textbooks have dropped the traditional "Christocentric" dating system of B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, In the Year of Our Lord) in favor of B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era).
5. U.S. Bureau of Engraving & Printing - The Great Seal.
6. U.S. Bureau of Engraving & Printing - The One Dollar Bill (pictures).
(First published in eco-logic, January/February, 1996)
The Commission on Global Governance has released its recommendations in preparation for a World Conference on Global Governance, scheduled for 1998, at which official world governance treaties are expected to be adopted for implementation by the year 2000. Among those recommendations are specific proposals to expand the authority of the United Nations to provide:
* Global taxation;
* A standing UN army;
* An Economic Security Council;
* UN authority over the global commons;
* An end to the veto power of permanent members of the Security Council;
* A new parliamentary body of "civil society" representatives (NGOs);
* A new "Petitions Council";
* A new Court of Criminal Justice; (Accomplished in July, 1998 in Rome)
* Binding verdicts of the International Court of Justice;
* Expanded authority for the Secretary General.
These proposals reflect the work of dozens of different agencies and commissions over several years, but are now being advanced by the Commission on Global Governance in its report entitled Our Global Neighborhood (Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-19-827998-3, 410pp).
The Commission consists of 28 individuals, carefully selected because of their prominence, influence, and their ability to effect the implementation of the recommendations. The Commission is not an official body of the United Nations. It was, however, endorsed by the UN Secretary General and funded through two trust funds of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), nine national governments, and several foundations, including the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation.
The Commission believes that world events, since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, combined with advances in technology, the information revolution, and the now-global awareness of impending environmental catastrophe, create a climate in which the people of the world will recognize the need for, and the benefits of, global governance. Global governance, according to the report, "does not imply world government or world federalism." Although the difference between "world government" and "global governance" has been compared to the difference between "rape" and "date-rape," the system of governance described in the report is a new system. There is no historic model for the system here proposed, nor is there any method by which the governed may decide whether or not they wish to be governed by such a system. Global governance is a procedure toward defined objectives that employs a variety of methods, none of which give the governed an opportunity to vote "yes" or "no" for the outcome. Decisions taken by administrative bodies, or by bodies of appointed delegates, or by "accredited" civil society organizations, are already implementing many of the recommendations just published by the Commission.
The Foundation for Global Governance
The foundation for global governance is the belief that the world is now ready to accept a "global civic ethic" based on "a set of core values that can unite people of all cultural, political, religious, or philosophical backgrounds." This belief is reinforced by another belief: "that governance should be underpinned by democracy at all levels and ultimately by the rule of enforceable law."
The report says: "We believe that all humanity could uphold the core values of respect for life, liberty, justice and equity, mutual respect, caring, and integrity." In the fine print, these lofty values lose much of their appeal. Respect for life, for example, is not limited to human life. "Respect for life" actually means equal respect for all life. The Global Biodiversity Assessment (Section 9), prepared under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme, describes in great detail the biocentric view that "humans are one strand in nature's web," consistent with the biocentric view that all life has equal intrinsic value. Some segments of humanity may balk at extending to trees, bugs, and grizzly bears the same respect for life that is extended to human beings.
"Next to life, liberty is what people value most," the report says. It also says: "The impulse to possess turf is a powerful one for all species; yet it is one that people must overcome." It also says: "global rules of custom constrain the freedom of sovereign states," and "sensitivity over the relationship between international responsibility and national sovereignty [is a] considerable obstacle to the leadership at the international level," and "Although states are sovereign, they are not free individually to do whatever they want." Maurice Strong, a member of the Commission, and a likely candidate for the position of Secretary General, said in an essay entitled Stockholm to Rio: A Journey Down a Generation: "It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation."
The core value of "justice and equity" is the basis for sweeping changes in the UN as proposed by the Commission. The Commission has determined that: "Although people are born into widely unequal economic and social circumstances, great disparities in their conditions or life chances are an affront to the human sense of justice. A broader commitment to equity and justice is basic to more purposeful action to reduce disparities and bring about a more balanced distribution of opportunities around the world. A commitment to equity everywhere is the only secure foundation for a more humane world order.... Equity needs to be respected as well in relationships between the present and future generations. The principle of intergenerational equity underlies the strategy of sustainable development."
"Mutual respect" is broadly defined as "tolerance." "Some assertions of particular identities may in part be a reaction against globalization and homogenization, as well as modernization and secularization. Whatever the causes, their common stamp is intolerance." Individual achievement and personal responsibility are counter to the value of "mutual respect" as suggested in the UN's World Core Curriculum, authored by Robert Muller, Chancellor of the UN University and former Deputy Secretary General to three UN Secretaries General. The Robert Muller School World Core Curriculum Manual (November, 1986) says: "The idea for the school grew out of a desire to provide experiences which would enable the students to become true planetary citizens through a global approach to education." The first principle of the curriculum is to: "Promote growth of the group idea, so that group good, group understanding, group interrelations and group goodwill replace all limited, self-centered objectives leading to group consciousness."
The value of "caring" is institutionalized in the Commission's proposals: "The task for governance is to encourage a sense of caring, through policies and mechanisms that facilitate co-operation to help those less privileged or needing comfort and support in the world." "Integrity" is defined to be the adoption and practice of these core values and the absence of corruption. As the world adopts these core values, the Commission believes a "global ethic" will emerge. Global governance will "Embody this ethic in the evolving system of international norms, adapting, where necessary, existing norms of sovereignty and self-determination to changing realities." The effectiveness of this global ethic "will depend upon the ability of people and governments to transcend narrow self-interests and agree that the interests of humanity as a whole will be best served by acceptance of a set of common rights and responsibilities. Without the objectives and limits that a global ethic would provide, however, global civil society could become unfocused and even unruly. That could make effective global governance difficult."
Among the "rights" such a global ethic would bestow upon all people are:
A secure life;
An opportunity to earn a fair living;
Equal access to the global commons.
The right to "a secure life" means much more than freedom from the threat of war. "Human security includes safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease, and repression, as well as protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life. The Commission believes that the security of people must be regarded as a goal as important as the security of states." Herein lies a significant expansion of the responsibilities of the United Nations. Until now, the UN's responsibility was limited to its member states. The Commission's proposals will give to the UN responsibility for the security of individuals within the boundaries of member states. This shift is extremely significant as we shall see when we examine proposed changes in the structure and authority of UN organizations.
The right to a secure life also means the right to live on a secure planet. "Human activity...combined with unprecedented increases in human numbers...are impinging on the planet's basic life support systems. Action must be taken now to control the human activities that produce these risks.... In confronting these risks, the only acceptable path is to apply the `precautionary principle'." Clearly, the Commission sees the UN as the global authority for protecting the environment.
The right to earn a "fair living" carries with it far-reaching implications. The Commission discusses at length what is "fair" and what is not. It is not fair, for example, for the developed countries, which contain 20 percent of the population, to use 80 percent of the natural resources. It is not fair for the permanent members of the Security Council to have the right of veto. In general, it is not fair for one segment of the population to be rich while another segment of the population is poor. "Unfair in themselves, poverty and extreme disparities of income fuel both guilt and envy when made more visible by global television. They demand, and in recent decades have begun to receive, a new standard of global governance." The right to earn a fair living implies that there must be some kind of a job available from which people may earn their living. Under the auspices of a new Economic Security Council, which we will discuss later, the Commission would give the UN responsibility for seeing that all people would have "an opportunity to earn a fair living."
The Commission sees pollution of the global atmosphere and the depletion of ocean fisheries as inadequacies of global governance. "We propose, therefore, that the Trusteeship Council...be given the mandate of exercising trusteeship over the global commons. Its functions would include the administration of environmental treaties.... It would refer any economic or security issues arising from these matters to the Economic Security Council or the Security Council." Trusteeship over the global commons provides the basis to levy user fees, taxes and royalties for permits to use the global commons. Global commons are defined to be: "the atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and the related environment and life-support systems that contribute to the support of human life." This broad definition of the global commons would give the UN authority to deal with environmental matters inside the borders of sovereign states, and on privately owned property.
The foundation of global governance is a set of core values, a belief system, which contains ideas that are foreign to the American experience, and ignores other values and ideas that are precious to the American experience. The values and ideas articulated in the Commission's report are not new. They have been tried, under different names, in other societies. Often, the consequences have been devastating. These values, under new names, have been emerging in UN documents since the late 1980s, and have dominated international conferences, agreements, and treaties since 1992. This set of core values underlies Agenda 21 adopted in Rio de Janeiro. Virtually every international treaty and agreement introduced during this decade reflects this set of core values. The Commission's recommendations to achieve global governance seek to enforce these values through the programs authorized and implemented by a global bureaucracy growing from a revitalized and restructured United Nations system.
The Structure of Global Governance
The UN Security Council is the supreme organ of the United Nations system. Originally, the Council had eleven members, of which China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States were permanent members with veto power. The other six positions rotated in two- year terms among the remaining members of the UN General Assembly. The Council now has 15 members which would be increased to 23. The proposal stops short of recommending the elimination of permanent status, but does recommend that the remaining members serve as "standing members" until a full review of member status can be conducted, including the permanent members, "in the first decade of the next century." A phase-out of the veto power of permanent members is recommended.
Perhaps more important are the proposed new principles under which the Security Council may take action. "We propose that the following be used as norms for security policies in the new era:
All people, no less than all states, have a right to a secure existence;
Global security policy should be to prevent conflict and war and to maintain the integrity of the planet's life-support systems by eliminating the economic, social, environmental, political and military conditions that generate threats to the security of people and the planet;
Military force is not a legitimate political instrument except in self-defense or under UN auspices.
The production and trade in arms should be controlled by the international community."
The Commission believes and recommends "that it is necessary to assert...the rights and interests of the international community in situations within individual states in which the security of people is violated extensively. We believe a global consensus exists today for a UN response on humanitarian grounds in cases of gross abuse of the security of people."
Subtle, carefully crafted language significantly expands the mission and authority of the UN Security Council to intervene in the affairs of sovereign states when it determines that the security of individuals is in jeopardy. Security of individuals, under the set of core values and the new global ethic, includes an opportunity to earn a fair living, and equal access to the global commons. This expanded authority includes military intervention - as a last resort.
The Security Council would also be empowered to raise a standing army. Article 43 of the UN Charter authorizes such a force, but has never been activated. The Commission says: "It is high time that this idea - a United Nations Volunteer Force - was made a reality." Such a force would be under the exclusive authority of the UN Security Council and under the day-to-day command of the UN Secretary General. It would maintain its own support and mobilization capabilities and be available for "rapid deployment" anywhere in the world. The Commission envisions a small, highly trained, well equipped force of 10,000 troops for immediate intervention while more conventional "peace keeping" forces are assembled from member nations.
A Restructured Trusteeship Council
The Trusteeship Council is an original principal organ of the United Nations system. Created to oversee nations in transition from colonies to independence, its work was concluded in 1994 when the last of the colonies, Palau in the South Pacific, gained its independence. The Commission has proposed amending Chapters 12 and 13 of the UN Charter to give the Trusteeship Council authority over the global commons, and to reconstitute the Council with a fixed number of members including qualified members from "civil society." This proposal is another extremely significant step in the creation of a new form of governance. A "qualified member from civil society" means a representative from an accredited NGO (non-government organization). The status of NGOs is elevated even further in the Commission's recommendations which we will be see later. Here, however, for the first time, unelected, self-appointed, environmental activists are given a position of governmental authority on the governing board of the agency which controls the use of atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and, for all practical purposes, biodiversity. This invitation for "civil society" to participate in global governance is described as expanding democracy.
The work assigned to the Trusteeship Council is now the responsibility of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which was an original principal organ of the UN system. The Commission proposes that ECOSOC be retired and all the agencies and programs under its purview be shifted to the Trusteeship Council. The United Nations Environment Programme, along with all the environmental treaties under its jurisdiction, would ultimately be governed by a special body of environmental activists, chosen only from accredited NGOs appointed by delegates to the General Assembly who are themselves appointed by the President. The Commission says: "The most important step to be taken is the conceptual one that the time has come to acknowledge that the security of the planet is a universal need to which the UN system must cater." The environmental work program of the entire UN system will be authorized and coordinated by this body. Enforcement will come from an upgraded Security Council, and from the new Economic Security Council.
The New Economic Security Council
Described as an "Apex Body," the Economic Security Council (ESC) is proposed to have "the standing in relation to international economic matters that the Security Council has in peace and security matters." The new ESC would be a deliberative, policy body rather than an executive agency. It would work by consensus without veto power by any member. "The time is now ripe - indeed, overdue - to create a global forum that can provide leadership in economic, social and environmental fields." According to the Commission, the new ESC would:
Continuously assess the overall state of the world economy;
Provide a long-term strategic policy framework to promote sustainable development;
Secure consistency between the policy goals of the international economic institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, Global Environment Facility, and others);
Study proposals for financing public goods by international revenue raising. (Public goods are defined to be: "The rules and sense of order that must underpin any stable and prosperous system.... It is in their nature not to be provided by markets or by individual governments acting in isolation").
The agenda to be addressed by the ESC includes: "long-term threats to security in its widest sense, such as shared ecological crises, economic instability, rising unemployment...mass poverty...and with the promotion of sustainable development."
The Commission recommends that the ESC have no more than 23 members, that it be headed by a new Deputy Secretary-General for Economic Co-operation and Development, and that the gross domestic product (GDP) of all member nations be measured by and based upon "Purchase Power Parity (PPP)." PPP is an accounting device, which (according to a chart on page 163 of the report) transforms the 1991 U.S. trade deficit of $28 billion into a trade surplus of $164 billion.
Both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) would be brought under the authority of the new ESC. The Commission believes: "for economic growth to raise the living standards of the poor and be environmentally sustainable, trade has to be open and based on stable, multilaterally agreed rules." The ESC would be given authority over telecommunications and multimedia. Since the atmosphere and outer space are "global commons" assigned to the Trusteeship Council, businesses that use the air waves and satellites would be subject to the policies of the ESC. The Commission says: " Civil society itself should try to provide a measure of global public service broadcasting not linked to commercial interests. The highest priority should be given to examining how an appropriate system of global governance can be created for overseeing the `global information society' through a common regulatory approach." The Commission calls on the WTO to give poor countries preferential treatment in license allocations and to create rules to counter the influence of "national monopolies."
Without this high-level ESC, the Commission fears that "the global neighborhood could become a battleground of contending economic forces, and the capacity of humanity to develop a common approach will be jeopardized." The ESC is expected to address the problem of tariffs and quotas, and, "A wide range of what used to be considered purely as national concerns: nationally created technical and product standards, different approaches to social provision and labour markets, competition policy, environmental control, investment incentives, corporate taxation, and different traditions of commercial and intellectual property law, of corporate governance, of government intervention, and of cultural behavior."
The ESC is designed to centralize and consolidate policy making for not only world trade, but also for the international monetary system and world development. The Commission says: "there is a broad consensus on many of the elements: an understanding of the importance of environmental sustainability; financial stability; and a strong social dimension to policy, emphasizing education (especially of women), health, and family planning." To deal with third-world debt, the Commission recommends that a system be established "akin to corporate bankruptcy, whereby a state accepts that its affairs will, for a while, be placed under the management of representatives of the international community and a fresh start is made, wiping much of the slate clean." The ESC is expected to facilitate "technology transfer" which is "crucial to development" in developing countries. The ESC is expected to establish immigration policies because "there is an underlying inconsistency - even hypocrisy - in the way many governments treat migration. They claim a belief in free markets (including labour markets), but use draconian and highly bureaucratic regulations to control cross-border labour migration."
Environmental policies are to be under the authority of the Trusteeship Council, but implementation and enforcement of those policies will largely be a function of the ESC. Implementation measures will be coordinated through UN organizations and NGOs. The Commission recognizes that: "Non-governmental organizations, such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), have also made important contributions by creating a climate conducive to official action to improve environmental governance." (Co-chair of the Commission on Global Governance is the immediate past president of the IUCN, Shirdath Ramphal; the IUCN created the WWF in 1961, and the WWF created the World Resources Institute in 1982. The immediate past president of WRI, Gustave Speth, is now head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and WRI's chief policy analyst, Rafe Pomerance, is now Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Health and Natural Resources).
The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), created as a result of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), (headed by Maurice Strong) is expected to be "the focal point within the UN system for coherence and co-ordination of programmes undertaken by various UN agencies. The CSD should not, however, be seen simply as an administrative co-ordinating body. It exists to give political leadership more generally in the field of sustainable development, in particular in implementing Agenda 21 as agreed at Rio."
The Commission recognizes that: "sustainable development cannot be achieved solely through government action or market forces. The growing reliance on non-governmental organizations and institutions as partners with government and business in achieving economic progress is leading to more participatory development. Involving agents of civil society leads to programmes and projects that are more focused on people and more productive." To insure greater involvement by "civil society," the Commission has formalized proposals to elevate the status of NGOs.
The Machinery of Global Governance
The Commission recommends the creation of two new bodies: (1) an Assembly of the People, and (2) a Forum of Civil Society. "What is generally proposed is the initial setting up of an assembly of parliamentarians, consisting of representatives elected by existing national legislatures from among their members, and the subsequent establishment of a world assembly through direct election by the people." The Forum of Civil Society would consist of "300 - 600 representatives of organizations accredited to the General Assembly...." The Forum would meet annually prior to the meeting of the UN General Assembly. "The considered views of the Forum would be a qualitative change in the underpinnings of global governance."
NGO participation in global governance is an essential feature, and is, in fact, the dimension of governance that is totally new. It is no longer just an idea. It is a demonstrated fact of life which the Commission now seeks to institutionalize through legal status. It is the machinery of global governance which is organized and coordinated from the highest chambers of governance at the United Nations, to the most local bodies of governance, including County Commissions, City Councils, and even to local watershed councils.
The idea of NGO participation in global governance is as old as the United Nations. Julius Huxley, who founded the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in 1946, also founded the IUCN in 1948. It was the IUCN that effectively lobbyied the UN General Assembly in 1968 to adopt Resolution #1296, which establishes a policy for "accrediting" certain NGOs. The IUCN is accredited to at least six different UN organizations. Moreover, it is the premier international NGO claiming a membership of 53 international NGOs, 550 national NGOs, 100 government agencies, and 68 sovereign nations. The current president of the IUCN is Jay Hair, former president of America's largest NGO, the National Wildlife Federation.
The IUCN created the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) which in turn, created the World Resources Institute (WRI). These three NGOs share publication credit with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on virtually every major document on the environment that has been released since 1972. As of 1994, there were 980 accredited NGOs. These NGOs are accredited because of their demonstrated support of issues being advanced by the United Nations. A single NGO is selected to coordinate activities within each issue area. In addition to the Internet, NGO coordination information is published by the WRI in a publication called Networking. Activity of non-accredited NGOs is coordinated through membership in the IUCN. The IUCN Annual Report for 1993 claims more than 6000 "experts" in their network who serve as volunteers "on Technical Advisory Committees, Regional Advisory Councils, Working Groups and Task Forces. Taken together, these voluntary groups are an immense strength of the Union."
According to the Commission's report, 28,900 international NGOs are known to exist, and many are directly involved in advancing the agenda of global governance. At UNCED, for example, 7,892 NGOs were certified to participate in the "civil society forum" which preceded the actual conference. Many of the NGOs participated in the preliminary Preparatory Committee Meetings, or "PrepComs," and were prepared and present to lobby the official delegates to the conference. This procedure is followed at virtually every global and regional conference.
This procedure is now being applied to domestic policy. Members of the international NGO community have strong national constituencies, and enormous staff and money capabilities. Global issues, such as the Biodiversity Treaty, which require national or local action, become the focus of the domestic agenda for national NGOs. The structure and mechanics of "civil society" participation in global governance is further revealed in a variety of documents originating from the UN organizations and from the IUCN, WWF, and the WRI.
Most often, the term "Public/Private Partnerships" is used to describe and define "civil society" participation. At the lowest, "on-the-ground" level, NGOs are present and prepared to lobby on issues relating to a particular watershed, or a particular project under consideration by a local zoning board. Public/Private Partnerships encourage the creation of "boards" or "councils" which are supposed to represent the interests of all the "stakeholders." In reality, these boards are encouraged because well-prepared NGOs are most often able to dominate the outcome. At the local level, NGOs are frequently full-time professionals, paid by a not-for-profit organization, funded through the coordinated efforts of the Environmental Grantmakers Association or the federal government. The other "stakeholders" in these partnerships are business people who work for a living and simply want to take care of the environment, but havetoo little time to become experts on the issues.
Within the broader agenda, NGOs within these local partnerships coordinate with NGOs assigned to multi-county, or regional councils. The NGOs that are assigned to regional councils and partnerships coordinate with the NGOs that set the national agenda. And they are, of course, the same NGOs that are accredited to the UN, or are members of the IUCN. Deep within the 1,100 or more pages of the Global Biodiversity Assessment, there is a discussion of this procedure which, ideally, would culminate with a "Bioregional Council," consisting of "stakeholders," but dominated by affiliates of "accredited" NGOs, that would have ultimate authority over all local land and resource use decisions.
To further strengthen the participation of NGOs, the Commission recommends the creation of "a new `Right of Petition' available to international civil society." The recommendation calls for the creation of a Council for Petitions, "a high-level panel of five to seven persons, independent of governments and selected in their personal capacity. It would be appointed by the Secretary-General with approval of the General Assembly. It should be a Council that holds in trust `the security of people' and makes recommendations to the Secretary-General, the Security Council, and the General Assembly." This new mechanism provides a direct route from the local, "on-the-ground" NGO affiliates of national and international NGOs to the highest levels of global governance. Although this mechanism has not yet been formally incorporated into the UN system, the procedure is being used. For example, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a group of affiliated NGOs, recently petitioned the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO asking for intervention in the plans of a private company to mine gold on private land near Yellowstone Park. The UNESCO Committee did intervene, and immediately listed Yellowstone as a "World Heritage Site in Danger." Under the terms of the World Heritage Convention, the United States is required to protect the park, even beyond the borders of the park, and onto private lands if necessary.
Enforcing Global Governance
"From the outset, the World Court was marginalized...states were free to take it or leave it, in whole or in part. The rule of law was asserted and, at the same time, undermined." The Commission intends to remedy this situation. Historically, scholars have argued that international law was not really law because there was no international legislature to create it, nor an international police force to enforce it. The Commission's recommendations remedy these problems.
The UN International Law Commission (ILC), a little-known subsidiary organ of the General Assembly created in 1947, is expected to expand its activity to include developing and drafting proposed international law. The IUCN now provides this service through its Environmental Law Centre.
The Commission recommends that treaties and agreements be written to include binding adjudication by the World Court, and that all nations "accept compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court." The WTO is a step in this direction. Members agree in advance to accept WTO decisions and not seek bilateral resolution of disputes. "The very essence of global governance is the capacity of the international community to ensure compliance with the rules of society."
The New International Criminal Court
The ILC has already developed the statutes necessary to create a new International Criminal Court. The example used to justify this court is Lybia's refusal to extradite the accused terrorists responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. "An International Criminal Court should have an independent prosecutor or a panel of prosecutors....Upon receipt of a complaint, the prosecutor's primary responsibility would be to investigate an alleged crime. The prosecutor would, of course, have to act independently and not seek or receive instructions from any government or other source."
The Commission recognizes that these recommendations may encounter opposition, and warns that "internal political processes within nation-states...may become obstacles to adoption of international standards. In the contemporary world, populist action has the potential to strike down the carefully crafted products of international deliberation....Yielding to internal political pressure can in a moment destroy the results of a decade of toil."
Although not explicitly referenced, this revealing commentary likely points to the outpouring of grassroots opposition to the Biodiversity Treaty when presented to the Senate for ratification in the 103rd Congress. The treaty - signed by President Clinton, approved by the Democratically-controlled Foreign Relations Committee, championed by virtually all the accredited NGOs, and expected to be approved by a wide margin, - never reached the floor for a vote because of "populist action."
The Commission does not discuss why the activity of accredited NGOs and their affiliates is "expanding democracy" through civil society participation, while at the same time, activity of non-accredited civil society is "political pressure," and "populist action."
Financing Global Governance
The Commission says: "Past reports recommending globally redistributive tax principles have received short shrift. The time could be right, however, for a fresh look and a breakthrough in this area. The idea of safeguarding and managing the global commons - particularly those related to the physical environment - is now widely accepted; this cannot happen with a drip-feed approach to financing. And the notion of expanding the role of the United Nations is now accepted in relation to military security."
Currently, total UN expenditures are slightly more than $11 billion annually, although not all the costs of peacekeeping activities are reflected through the UN system. The cost of implementing Agenda 21 was estimated in 1992 to be $600 billion per year. The proposed expansion of the UN system, and the proposals to expand programmatic responsibility suggest staggering costs. Currently, UN costs are paid by member nations in the form of assessments and voluntary contributions. The UN Charter says the costs will be paid by member nations as apportioned by the General Assembly, with no nation paying more than 25 percent. The United States is assessed 25 percent, contributes substantially to the volunteer programs, and ultimately pays more than 30 percent of the peacekeeping costs.
Because the UN has no power to enforce payment of either assessments or voluntary contributions, the Commission says "the industrialized countries...have severely constrained the exercise of the Assembly's collective authority. A start should be made in establishing practical, if initially small-scale, schemes of global financing to support specific UN operations." The United States has often withheld payment as a means of influencing UN policy. The Commission is careful to avoid giving the UN direct taxing power. "We specifically do not propose a taxing power located anywhere in the UN system. User charges, levies, taxes - global revenue-receiving arrangements of whatever kind - have to be agreed globally and implemented by a treaty or convention." Such an arrangement appears in the Law of the Seas treaty which authorizes a UN organization to charge application fees and royalties to companies wishing to mine the sea bed - even though the United States has not ratified the treaty.
The Commission's refusal to recommend taxing power for the UN while advancing dozens of global revenue-raising schemes is similar to declaring that "global governance" is not "world government." The Commission says "It would be appropriate to charge for the use of some common global resources. Another idea would be for corporate taxation of multinational companies." The favored scheme was first advanced by Nobel Prize winner, James Tobin. He has proposed a tax on international monetary exchange which would yield an estimated $1.5 trillion per year. "Charges for use of the global commons have a broad appeal on grounds of conservation and economic efficiency as well as for political and revenue reasons." The Commission supports a $2 per barrel tax on oil, which automatically escalates to $10 per barrel in 10 years. "A carbon tax introduced across a large number of countries or a system of traded permits for carbon emissions would yield very large revenues indeed."
Other recommendations for global revenues include:
A surcharge on airline tickets for use of the global commons
A charge on ocean maritime transport
User fees for ocean fishing
Special user fees for activities in Antarctica
Parking fees for geostationary satellites
Charges for user rights of the electromagnetic spectrum
"We urge the evolution of a consensus to help realize the long discussed and increasingly relevant concept of global taxation."
Conclusion
Many of the recommendations contained in this report have already been incorporated into treaties, agreements, and proposals initiated by the international community. Some have already been implemented. The Commission has called for the General Assembly to schedule a World Conference on Governance in 1998. Preparatory work has already begun. PrepComs will be conducted to develop documents on global governance - similar to the procedure used to develop the documents presented at Rio - which are to be adopted at the 1998 Conference and ratified for implementation by the year 2000. Only "accredited" NGOs will be allowed to participate in the PrepComs. Only accredited NGOs and their affiliates will participate in the adoption strategy.
More importantly, only delegates appointed by the President of the United States will be able to cast a vote on all the issues that so dramatically affect every American. The current Presidential appointees are the very people who helped develop the proposals from their various positions with accredited NGOs.
The NGO machinery of global governance is at work in America. Their activity includes agitation at the local level, lobbying at the national level, promoting the celebration of the UN's 50th anniversary, producing studies to justify global taxation, and paying for television ads that elevate the image of the UN. The strategy to advance the global governance agenda specifically includes programs to discredit individuals and organizations that generate "internal political pressure" or "populist action" that fails to support the new global ethic. The national media has systematically portrayed dissenting voices as right-wing-extremist, militia-supporting fanatics. Consequently, the vast majority of American citizens have no idea how far the global governance agenda has progressed. This year, 1996, may be the last opportunity the world has to avoid, or at least to influence the shape of global governance. The United States is the only remaining power strong enough to influence the United Nations. Those voices now speaking for all Americans in the United Nations are cheering the forces that would diminish national sovereignty and render individual liberty and property rights relics of the past. If the current voices representing the United States continue to push for global governance, the world will be committed to a course which will truly transform society more dramatically than the Bolshevik revolution transformed Russia.
The recommendations of the Commission, if implemented, will bring all the people of the world into a global neighborhood managed by a world-wide bureaucracy, under the direct authority of a minute handful of appointed individuals, and policed by thousands of individuals, paid by accredited NGOs, certified to support a belief system, which to many people - is unbeievable and unacceptable.
(Our Global Neighborhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance may be obtained from Oxford University Press. Call (919) 677-0977; paperback, $14.95, ISBN 0-19-827997-3, 410 pages.)
About the Commission on Global Governance
Former West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, called a group of prestigious, international leaders to Konigswinter, Germany in January 1990. They asked Ingvar Carlsson (then Prime Minister of Sweden), and Shirdath Ramphal (Secretary General of the Commonwealth and President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and Jan Pronk (Minister for Development Co-operation of the Netherlands) to prepare a report on the opportunities for global governance. The report was presented in April, 1991, in Stockholm, and Carlsson and Ramphal were asked to co-chair the new commission the report recommended. The Co-chairmen met with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, UN Secretary General, in April, 1992, to secure his endorsement of the effort. By September, the Commission was established with 28 members and funding from two trust funds administered by the United Nations Development Program, nine national governments, and private foundations.
Meet the Commissioners
Ingvar Carlsson, Sweden Prime Minister of Sweden 1986-91, and Leader of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden.
Shirdath Ramphal, Guyana Secretary-General of the Commonwealth from 1975 to 1990, President of the IUCN, Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Leadership in Environment and Development Program; Chairman, Advisory Committee, Future Generations Alliance Foundation, Chancellor, University of the West Indies, and the University of Warwick in Britain, member of five international commissions in the 1980s, and author of Our Country, The Planet, written especially for the Earth Summit.
Ali Alatas, Indonesia Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia since 1988; permanent representative to the United Nations.
Abdlatif Al-Hamad, Kuwait Director-General and Chairman of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development in Kuwait. Former Minister of Finance and Minister of Planning; member of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues; Board member of the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Oscar Arias, Costa Rica President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990; drafted the Arias Peace Plan which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; founded the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress.
Anna Balletbo i Puig, Spain Member of the Spanish Parliament since 1979; member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and on Radio and Television; Executive Committee of the Socialist Party in Catalonia; General Secretary of the Olof Palme International Foundation; President of Spain's United Nations Association; and activist on women's issues since 1975.
Kurt Biedenkopf, Germany Minister-President of Saxony since 1990; member of the Federal Parliament; Secretary General of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.
Allan Boesak, South Africa Minister for Economic Affairs for the Western Cape Region; Director of the Foundation for Peace and Justice; Chairman of the African National Congress (ANC); President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and a Patron of the United Democratic Front.
Manuel Camacho Solis, Mexico Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mayor of Mexico City; Mexico's Secretary of Urban Development and Ecology.
Bernard Chidzero, Zimbabwe Minister of Finance; Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD; Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and the IMF; and member of the World Commission on Environment and Development.
Barber Conable, United States President of the World Bank from 1986 to 1991; Chairman of the Committee on US-China Relations; Senior Advisor to the Global Environment Facility; member of the House of Representatives from 1965 to 1985; member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution; and Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of Cornell University.
Jacques Delors, France President of the European Commision since 1985; Minister for Economics, Finance and Budget; Mayor of Clichy; and member of the European Parliament.
Jiri Dienstbier, Czech Republic Chairman of the Free Democrats Party; Chairman of the Czech Council on Foreign Relations; and Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Enrique Iglesias, Uruguay President of the Inter-American Development Bank since 1988; Minister of External Relations; Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America; President, Central Bank of Uruguay; and Chairman of the Conference that launched the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations resulting in the World Trade Organization.
Frank Judd, United Kingdom Member of the House of Lords; Member of Parliament; Under-Secretary of State for Defence; Minister for Overseas Development; Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth; and Director of Oxfam from 1985 to 1991.
Hongkoo Lee, Republic of Korea Deputy Prime Minister; Minister of National Unification; Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Professor of Political Science at Seoul National University; Director of the Institute of Social Sciences; and Chairman of Seoul's 21st Century Committee.
Wangari Maathai, Kenya Founder and co-ordinator of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya; Chair of the National Council of Women of Kenya and spokesperson for non-government organizations at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.
Sadako Ogata, Japan United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees since 1991; Director of the International Relations Institute; Representative to the UN; member of the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues; and Chairman of the Executive Board of UNICEF.
Olara Otunnu, Uganda President of the International Peace Academy in New York; Foreign Minister from 1985 to 1986; Permanent Representative to the UN; and Chaired UN Commission on Human Rights.
I.G. Patel, India Chairman of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme; Governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian Government; Permanent Secretary of the Indian Finance Ministry; Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund; and Deputy Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Celina Vargas do Amaral Peixoto, Brazil Director Getulio Vargas Foundation; Director-General of the Brazilian National Archives; Director of the Center of Research and Documentation on Brazilian History.
Jan Pronk, Netherlands Minister for Development Co-operation; Vice Chairman of the Labor Party; Member of Parliament; Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD; and Member of the Independent Commission on International Development issues.
Qian Jiadong, China Deputy Director-General of the China Centre for International Studies; Ambassador and Permanent Representative in Geneva to the United Nations; Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs; and member of the South Commission.
Marie-Angelique Savane, Senegal Director of the Africa Division of the UN Population Fund; Director of the UNFPA in Dakar; Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; team leader at the UN Research Institute for Social Development; President of the Association of African Women for Research and Development; and member of the UNESCO Commission on Education for the 21st Century.
Adele Simmons, United States President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; member of the Council on Foreign Relations; member of the UN High Level Advisory Board on Sustainable Development; member of President Carter's Commission on World Hunger; and member of President Bush's Commission on Environmental Quality.
Maurice Strong, Canada Chairman and CEO of Ontario Hydro; Chairman of the Earth Council; Secretary-General of Earth Summits I and II; and member of the World Commission on Environment and Development. (See ecologic, November/December, 1995)
Brian Urquhart, United Kingdom Scholar-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation's International Affairs Program; United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs 1972 to 1986; Member of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues.
Yuli Vorontsov, Russia Ambassador to the United States; Ambassador to the United Nations; Advisor to President Boris Yeltsin on Foreign Affairs; and served as Ambassador to Afghanistan, France, and India.
Today started not unlike any other. Except that one of my friends emailed me a story about how a company called American Police Force has moved into a town south of me called Hardin, and how they were “taking over that jail that was built and never opened”. Now most Montanans are aware of this financial OOPS that was this modern jail. It was built, and never opened because it was not built to specs in accordance with prisoner housing requirements pursuant to Montana State Law.
featured stories Hardin, Montana under siege!
The new prison facility in Hardin,
Montana.
When I started reading the KULR 8 news stations reports on this “American Police Force”, it immediately made me suspicious as that is totally against the idea of police. Our police are hired and mandated by the local governments they are local to. They are required to go to what’s called POST, or Peace Officer’s Standards of Training. This school is mandatory by Montana Law prior to be appointed as a “sworn peace officer”.
With these concerns in mind, I started making phone calls. I started with Becky Shay, who was the Billings Gazette reporter who initially broke the story. I spent an hour and a half with her and talked about all of the details. She and I had a positive talk where she assured me that she was “thankful for the chance to be able to talk to people like me.” I was appalled to hear that this company had “no intention of revealing who their parent company is”. Ms. Shay confided in me that she went from a reporter’s salary and conditions “driving a ‘99 Dodge Intrepid with a broken tie rod and bad front brakes”, to “a brand new black SUV that she doesn’t have to pay the gas bill for”. My jaw was on the floor. Story breaker straight to the being the mouth of the beast…
Ms. Shay also told me that there are people in Hardin that are so grateful for APF’s presence, that they literally opened their homes to her if she needed a place to say. Now this SOUNDS great and all, but it also sounded very manufactured. This conversation went down as if Ms. Shay was trying to sell me something. I read some things about how APF arrived in Hardin, Montana with the words: Hardin Police on the door. This is IMPERSONATING A POLICE OFFICER. They had NO RIGHT to bear that title. They are NOT sworn as peace officers. They have NO AUTHORITY!
* It was shortly before I ended this call on a positive note, that Ms. Shay expressed a GREAT interest in talking to Alex. I told her that I would be contacting the AJ show. I was told by her that I was TOTALLY 100% OK’d to use ALL of the content in any further correspondence. I then called Mr. Al Pedersen who is the Executive Director of Two Rivers Authority, the financial entity that is in charge of attempting to rebuild Hardin’s infrastructure. I asked Mr. Pedersen to elaborate how a private military company could move into a town, take over a prison that did not meet Montana Code, and dare to emblazon “Hardin Police” on their doors…Mr. Pedersen cursed me out, and hung up on me. I called him back, got his voicemail, and left the message that since he could not see fit to talk to me civilly, that I would be calling all of my elected officials as well as CNN and CSPAN. No reply.
I then proceeded to call KULR8 news in Billings, Montana. They expressed concern about how a near 20 year career reporter could simply sell out and go to work for the very company SHE ousted! The person I spoke to said, “she got herself a bigger paycheck, can’t fault her for that!”. This person also conceded that it was a sell out situation, and was sick. I than called the Office of the Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. The person who answered the phone assured me that Gov. Schweitzer was watching this situation and would see to it that there was NOTHING illegal or unconstitutional going on, and that his office would NOT allow these people to overstep any legal boundaries. They didn’t want to talk about how the APF showed up labelled as “police”. This conversation was abruptly ended by the intern.
I then called the Office of Max Baucus’ Billings location who denied any knowledge. Although Schweitzer, Baucus, and Mt Senator Jon Tester were sued by Two Rivers Authority to allow this prison to be used by a private entity…wherein a judge overturned Montana Law in order to allow this prison to be used privately without disclosing where the prisoners are coming from, or their nature. This company is known to be affiliated with Blackwater Security now known as XE, as well as other PMC’s.
For more information or to post Montanna news tips please go to.
http://freedomvideousa.forumwise.com/
The Illuminati - Our Secret Masters (Alex Jones, Jim Mars, Texe Marrs)
CIA Tells Congress al-Qaeda to Attack in Three to Six Months
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
February 2, 2010
CIA boss Leon Panetta told Congress today that “homegrown extremists” working for al-Qaeda will strike America in three to six months. The recruits will be “clean” and have no traces to the phantom terrorist organization, according to Panetta and other intelligence officials.
“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al-Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect,” Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It’s the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country,” he said.
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said changes made since the ludicrous Christmas non-bombing over Detroit “would he able to identify and stop someone like the Detroit bomber before he got on the plane. But he warned a more careful and skilled would-be terrorist might not be detected,” reports the Associated Press.
Within hours of the hyped non-bombing evidence emerged revealing the incident was a false flag attack. “Eyewitness testimony pointing to a man helping the accused terrorist board without a passport, along with an unusual cameraman documenting the attempted attack on board the plane raise more than red flags– they point towards an intelligence operation, run as a drill, meant to conjure up public support for a number of fronts in the continuing ‘War on Terror,’” Aaron Dykes wrote for Infowars.com on December 29, 2009.
Over the weekend British “spies” (as described by the New York Post) reportedly found evidence al-Qaeda is planning to insert “surgical bombs” inside suicide bombers. “Male bombers would have the explosive implanted near their appendix or in their buttocks; women would have them inside their breasts, Britain’s Daily Mail reported over the weekend.”
MI5 said the development was triggered by the introduction of body scanners at airports
Hundreds of terror suspects (read: patsies and mental deficients) have been convicted in civilian federal courts, including convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid who attended the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London. The Finsbury imam at the time was Abu Hamza al-Masri who began working with British Security Services in 1997. A large number of the supposed terrorists convicted in American courts were entrapped by the FBI in classic COINTELPRO fashion and did not have links to the CIA-created al-Qaeda. The entrapped were often fuzzy on al-Qaeda or what it represents.
In 2009, supposed terrorists in New York were so reluctant to participate in an FBI arranged undercover operation they had to be enticed with piles of cash, gifts, and bags of marijuana.
In the media lauded Miami terror case in 2007, the supposed ringleader Narseal “Prince Marina” Batiste “had heard of al-Qaida, but wasn’t sure what it stood for. The FBI instigators made Batiste swear loyalty to al-Qaida; then had him call on his local buddies to form an ‘Islamic army’ in Miami. None had military training. Some could barely read. But Batiste assured the group in the midst of its collective marijuana buzz of greatness ahead,” writes Saul Landau.
During the Senate “terror assessment hearing,” Blair also warned of the growing cyberthreat, saying computer-related attacks have become “dynamic and malicious.”
Blair warned the United States faces a “cyber Pearl Harbor” that will have devastating consequences for America’s technological infrastructure. Blair said an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies has “severely threatened” the country’s information systems and he said the recent cyber attacks against Google should be treated as a “wake up call,” reports Channel 4 News.
The Google attacks, according to an American internet security firm, came from China or its proxies, not al-Qaeda.
The government also expects us to believe the sophisticated and coordinated attack occurring on September 11, 2001, was also the work of medieval terrorists located in remote caves. It was never explained how Osama bin Laden made NORAD stand down.
Likewise, Blair does not tell us how al-Qaeda will take down the most advanced and complex computer networks in the world, presumably from the backwaters of Pakistan’s tribal region.
Research related links
1. Britons Thought Earthquake Was Al-Qaeda Attack
2. DEBKAfile Claims al-Qaeda Ordered to Launch Attack “Far Bigger than 9/11″
3. Counterterrorism Officials Claim al-Qaeda to Launch Bio Attack from Mexico
4. US Intel Officials Link Groups Listed In DHS “Extremist” Reports To Al Qaeda Bio-Attack
5. Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack
6. Homeland Security chief warns of threat from al-Qaeda sympathizers in U.S.
7. ‘Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants planning attacks from Yemen’
8. Al-Qaeda claims rocket attack on US oilmen in Yemen
9. DHS Takes Seriously Claim Militias May Collaborate with al-Qaeda on Bio Attack
10. Only 100 al-Qaeda Now in Afghanistan
11. British Government Says Threat of Dirty Bomb Attack Rising in U.K.
12. Mumbai Attacks Blamed On Al-Qaeda As Pretext For U.S. Military Response
On Sunday, Cheney pronounced himself "a big supporter of waterboarding," a near-drowning technique that has been regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War II.
Cheney was unrepentant about his support for the technique. He answered with an emphatic "yes" when asked if he had opposed the Bush administration’s decision to suspend the use of waterboarding – after it was employed against three "high-value detainees" sometimes in repetitive sequences. He added that waterboarding should still be "on the table" today.
Cheney then went further. Speaking with a sense of impunity, he casually negated a key line of defense that senior Bush officials had hidden behind for years – that the brutal interrogations were approved by independent Justice Department legal experts who thus gave the administration a legitimate reason to believe the actions were within the law.
However, on Sunday, Cheney acknowledged that the White House had told the Justice Department lawyers what legal opinions to render. In other words, the opinions amounted to ordered-up lawyering to permit the administration to do whatever it wanted.
In responding to a question about why he had so aggressively attacked President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism policies, Cheney explained that he had been concerned about the new administration prosecuting some CIA operatives who had handled the interrogations and "disbarring lawyers with the Justice Department who had helped us put those policies together. …
"I thought it was important for some senior person in the administration to stand up and defend those people who’d done what we asked them to do."
Cheney’s comment about the Justice lawyers who had "done what we asked them to do" was an apparent reference to John Yoo and his boss, Jay Bybee, at the Office of Legal Council (OLC), a powerful agency that advises the President on the limits of his power.
In 2002, Yoo – while working closely with White House officials – drafted legal memos that permitted waterboarding and other brutal techniques by narrowly defining torture. He also authored legal opinions that asserted virtual dictatorial powers for a President during war, even one as vaguely defined as the "war on terror." Yoo’s key memos were then signed by Bybee.
In 2003, after Yoo left to be a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Bybee was elevated to a federal appeals court judgeship in San Francisco, their successors withdrew the memos because of the sloppy scholarship. However, in 2005, President George W. Bush appointed a new acting chief of the OLC, Steven Bradbury, who restored many of the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
Legal Fig Leaf
In the years that followed, Bush administration officials repeatedly cited the Yoo-Bybee-Bradbury legal guidance when insisting that the "enhanced interrogation" of "war on terror" detainees – as well as prisoners from the Iraq and Afghan wars – did not cross the line into torture.
In essence, the Bush-Cheney defense was that the OLC lawyers offered honest opinions and that everyone from the President and Vice President, who approved use of the interrogation techniques, down to the CIA interrogators, who conducted the torture, operated in good faith.
If, however, that narrative proved to be false – if the lawyers had colluded with the policymakers to create legal excuses for criminal acts – then the Bush-Cheney defense would collapse. Rather than diligent lawyers providing professional advice, the picture would be of Mob consiglieres counseling crime bosses how to evade the law.
Though Bush administration defenders have long denied that the legal opinions were cooked, the evidence has long supported the conspiratorial interpretation. For instance, in his 2006 book War by Other Means, Yoo himself described his involvement in frequent White House meetings regarding what "other means" should receive a legal stamp of approval. Yoo wrote:
"As the White House held its procession of Christmas parties and receptions in December 2001, senior lawyers from the Attorney General’s office, the White House counsel’s office, the Departments of State and Defense and the NSC [National Security Council] met a few floors away to discuss the work on our opinion. …
"This group of lawyers would meet repeatedly over the next months to develop policy on the war on terrorism. "
Yoo said meetings were usually chaired by Alberto Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and later became Bush’s second Attorney General. Yoo identified other key players as Timothy Flanigan, Gonzales’s deputy; William Howard Taft IV from State; John Bellinger from the NSC; William "Jim" Haynes from the Pentagon; and David Addington, counsel to Cheney.
Yoo’s Account
In his book, Yoo described a give-and-take among participants at the meeting with the State Department’s Taft challenging Yoo’s OLC view that Bush could waive the Geneva Conventions regarding the invasion of Afghanistan (by labeling it a "failed state"). Taft noted that the Taliban was the recognized government of the country.
"We thought Taft’s memo represented the typically conservative thinking of foreign ministries, which places a priority on stabilizing relations with other states – even if it means creating or maintaining fictions – rather than adapting to new circumstances," Yoo wrote.
Regarding objections from the Pentagon’s judge advocate generals – who feared that waiving the Geneva Conventions would endanger American soldiers – Yoo again stressed policy concerns, not legal logic.
"It was far from obvious that following the Geneva Conventions in the war against al-Qaeda would be wise," Yoo wrote. "Our policy makers had to ask whether [compliance] would yield any benefit or act as a hindrance."
What Yoo’s book and other evidence make clear is that the lawyers from the Justice Department’s OLC weren’t just legal scholars handing down opinions from an ivory tower; they were participants in how to make Bush’s desired actions "legal."
They were the lawyerly equivalents of those U.S. intelligence analysts, who – in the words of the British "Downing Street Memo" – "fixed" the facts around Bush’s desire to justify invading Iraq.
The importance of this question – whether the OLC lawyers were honest brokers or criminal conspirators – was not missed by some of the congressional leaders who pressed for a serious investigation of Bush’s use of torture and other war crimes.
Two years ago, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, wrote a letter to the Justice Department’s watchdog agencies requesting an investigation into the role that "Justice Department officials [played] in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by the Central Intelligence Agency... and whether those who authorized it violated the law."
In the Feb. 12, 2008, letter, the senators questioned whether the OLC lawyers were "insulated from outside pressure to reach a particular conclusion" and whether Bush’s White House and the CIA played any role in influencing "deliberations about the lawfulness of waterboarding," a technique that creates the sensation of drowning.
Whitehouse, a former federal prosecutor, said those questions were designed to get to the point that having in-house lawyers dream up a legal argument doesn’t make an action legal, especially if the lawyers were somehow induced to produce the opinion.
Defining Torture
In the case of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation tactics, Yoo and Bybee generated a memo, dated Aug. 1, 2002, that came up with a novel and narrow definition of torture, essentially lifting the language from an unrelated law regarding health benefits.
The Yoo-Bybee legal opinion stated that unless the amount of pain administered to a detainee led to injuries that might result in "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions" then the interrogation technique could not be defined as torture.
Since waterboarding is not intended to cause death or organ failure – only the panicked gag reflex associated with drowning – it was deemed not to be torture.
The "torture memo" and related legal opinions were considered so unprofessional that Bybee’s replacement to head the OLC, Jack Goldsmith, himself a conservative Republican, took the extraordinary step of withdrawing them after he was appointed in October 2003.
However, Goldsmith was pushed out of his job after a confrontation with Cheney’s counsel Addington, and the later appointment of Bradbury enabled the Bush White House to reinstate many of the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
Last month, Newsweek reported that Yoo and Bybee had avoided any disciplinary recommendations because a draft report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility had been rewritten to remove harsh criticism that the two lawyers had violated professional standards, softening the language to simple criticism of their judgment.
The weaker language meant that the Justice Department would not refer the cases to state bar associations for possible disbarment proceedings.
Cheney’s frank comments on "This Week" – corroborating that Yoo and Bybee "had done what we asked them to do" – suggest that former Bush administration officials are confident that they will face no accountability from the Obama administration for war crimes.
Though the ABC News interviewer Jonathan Karl deserves some credit for posing the waterboarding question to Cheney, it was notable that Karl didn’t react with any shock or even a follow-up when Cheney pronounced himself a fan of the torture practice. Cheney’s waterboarding endorsement was only a footnote in ABC’s online account of the interview.
Surely, if a leader of another country had called himself "a big supporter of waterboarding," there would have been a clamor for his immediate arrest and trial at The Hague.
That Cheney feels he can operate with such impunity is a damning commentary on the rule of law in the United States, at least when it comes to the nation’s elites.
Robert Parry's new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq."
Joseph Stack, the pilot of the single-engine plane that crashed into an Austin, Texas, office building that housed IRS offices.
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report ( http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport ) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here ( http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml ).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.
(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
· “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
· “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
· “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a [expletive] about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a [expletive] about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.
To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.
So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.
When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.
This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy [expletive] up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of [expletive] at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
* Valerie Hunter is accusing Sheryl Stack of negligence
* Hunter's husband died when Andrew Joseph "Joe Stack III flew a plane into a building
* Lawsuit: Sheryl Stack "owed a duty to exercise reasonable care" for others' safety
* Sheryl Stack had issued statement offering sympathy to victim's family
(CNN) -- The widow of an Internal Revenue Service employee killed when a disgruntled taxpayer flew his plane into a seven-story building in Austin, Texas, last week is suing the pilot's wife, according to court documents.
Valerie Hunter, the wife of Vernon Hunter, is accusing Sheryl Stack, wife of Andrew Joseph "Joe" Stack III, of negligence, alleging she knew or should have known that her husband was a threat to others and, thus, could have prevented the attack, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Travis County District Court.
"Stack was threatened enough by Joseph Stack that she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel the night before the plane crash. [She] owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid a foreseeable risk of injury to others including [Vernon Hunter]," the suit says.
The lawsuit also seeks to bar the release of Vernon Hunter's autopsy report, saying that, if made public, it would cause Hunter's family to suffer "severe and irreparable emotional distress."
Hunter was killed February 18 when, authorities say, Stack flew his Piper Cherokee PA-28 into a northwest Austin building that housed nearly 200 IRS employees.
Authorities say Stack set fire to his $230,000 home in Austin before embarking on his fatal flight.
Police have said Sheryl Stack spent the previous night in an Austin-area hotel but did not say why. Police said they had received no calls of domestic violence from the house. The only calls to police were made a couple of years ago and concerned barking dogs, officials said said.
A 3,000-word message on a Web site registered to Stack railed against the government, particularly the IRS.
"I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different," the online message said. "I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
Sheryl Stack issued a statement after the attack expressing "sincere sympathy to the victims and their families."
