Why & How Africans Embrace Christianity

Invasion Through Conversion

“A striking example of how Christianity destroys a proud culture, by introducing “doubt”. The Christian body is imperfect, we are “sinners”. These beautiful people learn for the first time, that their behavior is a “sin”. A bigger psychological disastrous impact is the fictitious idea of the Christian afterlife, their current world is a place of sin, they are sinners, the “real life” will start in the afterlife. Makes me think what proud people we could be, if we could remove the Christian doctrine of imperfectness of the body.” ₁

Disclaimer: This was written for the purpose of discussion my own thoughts and conclusions. It is in no way an offense to anyone who may read it. In fact, I Thank you for reading this.

There have been so many questions in my mind over the years particularly as it relates to Spirituality and Religion. Before I go on, I have to admit that I too believed that “my religion” was the best religion. This belief started to wane gradually as I traveled through many religions, and in fact believed the propaganda. The propaganda was so intense that it made me feel even less righteous if I didn’t “spread the word.”

My journey started with Catholicism, then on to Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism culminating in African Centered Spirituality.  There was a common theme that flowed through them all, politics, economics and oppression. Arriving at African Centered Spirituality, I looked back in wonderment how they could possibly embrace Christianity as brought to them by outsiders from the West. After contemplation, observation, conversation and some serious study on my part, I think I have come to understand why African People, from the blackest to the lightest would embrace, preach and even die for Christianity. They literally abandon their original African Gods for the Image of the European as God. It is a bit mind boggling and what I want to do with this piece is explain from my perspective the reason why it happens and with such a fervor and fierceness sometimes to the amazement of the very people who brought it to them.

African  people are deeply religious or shall I say spiritual. So no outsider could bring to the African anything as it pertains to being deeply connected to the Divine Source, they perceived in their minds, through the ages as the most powerful being that governs the whole world, in fact, it governs the whole Universe. No one could pull from their hearts, minds and bodies what was not already deeply rooted in the psyche of the African. So what did the missionaries have that the Africans thought they did not?? This is partially what I wish to discuss here with a few additional points of reference for this topic.

Author’s Note: I am focusing on Africans and descendant Africans because I am most familiar with these people and how they process their reality. This article is not meant to offend but to just bring some clarity to the question, how can Africans become Christians (of the Western persuasion that is.)

The Politics

When you couple Religion with Politics it almost seems likes an oxymoron. But from the beginnings, religion has always been political. Ancient human history shows us that the original rulers were people who were designated as Highly Spiritual first. It was believed that a highly spiritual person was closest to God and thus would be the most fitted to rule righteously and justly.

But as time wore on things became more and more corrupted. People began to fight amongst themselves as to who should really be in power. Scandals would be exposed and the person in power at that time would be ostracized or castigated in some way, bringing shame upon he/she and their entire family.  There was an unspoken law that says, “No Chief or Queen mother should break the laws of the Village.” They are held in high esteem thus the tradition of carrying them on a litter above the heads of everyone else.  Ancient Africans strongly believed that their leaders were able to speak directly to God and in some instance, were perceived as Gods themselves. ₂

So, as with any political system of rulers and ruled, there were rivalries and outright wars over who would prevail in the position of honor such as the “Godhead” of a nation, particularly when the one in power was perceived as inept, corrupt or morally lacking.  The usurpation of one “Godhead” Chief or King for another regulated in such a way that it would not be arbitrary. Systems were set up to determine the right rules of engagement when selecting the next Leader. Politically, this bares a strong resemblance to the mentality of most of the worlds institutionalized political leaders. In traditional African society however, rather than it being put to a vote, it would be suggested by the counsel of elders, who for the most part, were deemed the law givers who maintain the order of society and settled disputes. Again, this is reminiscent of what happens in other societies around the world to this day. They may not be considered the counsel of elders but they are considered judges and magistrates, lawmakers and local politicians and law enforcement. It seems that somewhere along the way, the human being was taught that he needed to be regulated by an external entity because he could not regulate himself. Could it be that the very fact of being born an infant that has to be taught has something with this being a common feature across cultures?

NPCA Board Member Installed as a Chief

Thus, the African was not given anything they did not already have. The structure, order and operation of the Western system was strikingly different but the fundamentals were comparable, and comparable enough for the African mind to find it to be something that he could apply to his life or even discard his present experience and completely immerse himself in the “foreign” political structure. ₃, ₄

Nigerian Lawyers

The exchange is made, from the local authorities to the Invader’s authority figure who was then given all the rights and privileges of the original authority figures in their culture. Hence the dismantling of “Leaders” who looked like they did to leaders who bared no resemblance.

Let me speak briefly about the African mindset as it relates to Albinos, or albinism. While Africans are certainly aware of the various complexions they can produce from their loins, a completely pale, colorless offspring was cause for some to consult the elders and medicine men, as they felt they were cursed! Imagine the frightfulness they must have felt when these pale men came upon African shores. Imagine the gamut of emotions from those who feared them and those who loved them. Imagine the confusion. And then imagine what happened in their minds when they were told that these people were gods, leaders and bearers of good tidings.₅

   Albinism  is a rare, non-contagious, genetically inherited condition occurring in both genders regardless of ethnicity, in all countries of the world. BOTH the father and mother must carry the gene for it to be passed on even if they do not have albinism themselves.

The Economics

As historians have shown, African people were quite industrious before the advent of Western man. They had an economy that supported the land and the society. They were builders, artisans, farmers, teachers, homemakers, iron workers, textile engineers and gold and ebony harvesters and craftsmen. The adorned themselves with their products as well as paid homage to the gods, elders, chiefs, priests/medicine men and village leaders.  It was not uncommon to know who these individuals were just by looking at their housing, clothing, property, wives, children and livestock. Most of these items were given in support of their leadership and often to free them from toiling the land so they could spend most of their time taking care of their communities.

The African mindset of seeing their leaders as closer to the gods than themselves was enough motivation for them to honor them and in many cases gain favor from them, by giving them material things and physical service. Of course, human nature being what it is, in some cases, the hearts and minds of the populace were exploited by unscrupulous leaders. This could be seen in the extremes of the haves and the have-nots who just to gain favor would “sacrifice” their worldly possessions to gain favor from the gods. The exploitation of people of this mindset was easy in some instances and in others, caused the breakdown of the cohesion of the community as it became known that they were not being favored by the Gods and that they in fact, were being taken advantage of. ₆

Therefore, even in this instance, the advent of Western Style Christianity brought nothing to the African that he/she did not already have except in one sense. That is, he/she no longer had to pay a host of gods to gain favor, he/she only had to accept “Jesus” as their personal savior and that would seal the deal. No more running from one person to another seeking recourse for troubles, giving offerings and making sacrifices to the multitude of “gods” they initially served. They exchanged the many “gods” for one. However, the concept of tithing did not cease, and thus they were encouraged to build the church and volunteer at the church, and farm the land the church owned and do whatever other services the church required for the Glory of the Lord.

Here is where the exploitation became maximized as can be seen around the world, not just in Africa. Huge buildings are erected to hold the masses. These buildings become assembly rooms for the multitude to bring their money and wealth to a central location where they would be divided among the Church Officials, the newly acclaimed High Priests of the Western Christian Order. But the question remains, how do we keep them from running back to their old spiritual and political leaders? This leads us to our next topic.

Oppression/Violence/Intimidation/Abuse/Education

African people have a strong sense of family and an even stronger sense of shame and fear of what is commonly called “bad medicine or witchcraft. Most people who encounter Africans do not understand this very deep cultural aspect of the African mindset. Family means so much to them, that they are filled with dread when they are not able to uphold their family obligations. If these people are convinced that their family obligations are no longer to their physical family but to the members of the Church than they can rest at ease that they are fulfilling their duties in the eyes of the new “one God” who will bless them enormously if they forsaken their families for the Church as Christ had to do in order to gain the Kingdom of Heaven. They may have to be away from them for long periods of time in order to serve the Lord in his Holy place. Mind you, before this, there were shrines, temples and holy places peppered throughout the African community. This was not a new concept. The strangeness was demonstrated when they had to forsake their families, or leave them behind, in the bush as they did the “Devil’s” work with the primitive bushmen.

Let me move to the concept of shame and how that played a significant part in persuading the African that he would be sullied indeterminately or maybe forever in the eyes of this new “God”. Shame to the African can lead them to suicide, that is how deep and soulstirring the very thought of it is. Shame place  upon any man/woman/child in the village could lead to banishment, lack of support, no family connections or marriages, etc. A shamed individual would find it hard to live peacefully in his community because he has become a subject of social opprobrium and as a result he would rather travel some great distance where he would not feel the brunt of this shame. Shame can be placed upon an African due to any inordinate behavior that does not adhere to the laws of the community.

He/she may be able to make sacrifice for retribution, but it will still carry for some time that this person did something to bring shame upon himself and HIS/HER WHOLE FAMILY. Of course this strictness would lead these human beings to the point of secrecy, particularly in the case of the unwed mother, the thief, murderer or insane person. They become practically marked for life. Imagine the relief they felt when told that “Jesus” died for your sins and though you are a sinner to begin with, you can be saved by the “blood” of Christ and all would be cleared and  you would be welcomed into the Church family, no questions asked. The African full of shame would be more than willing to glorify in the name of the Lord, profess his sins and come to be saved by the power of the Holy Spirit, which he knows about spirits anyway.. So why not have one that can do all that? That is the message I was told when I ask a Liberian friend of mine, why did he become a Christian.
His response was, “Jesus is the final sacrifice. There is no more need to shed the blood of an animal when Jesus has shed his blood to save us all.”

I had an Eureka moment in that instance, as by this time, I was deeply involved in just that aspect of African Spiritual tradition of making sacrifices to the “gods.”

How does violence/intimidation and abuse play into this scenario? The added measure is that of the Devil and evil. Now the African is being taught that the Devil is real and that he is evil and that anyone who worships the Devil will die and go to hell for eternity. That’s intimidation. If you shirk Jesus than you must be of the Devil as you cannot serve two masters. If your family shirks Jesus then they too are of the Devil and must be punished.

Initially, this concept makes the African quite uncomfortable and uneasy, and so she/he becomes comfortable with just saving their own souls, but sermon after sermon they are told how important it is to save their families and friends, etc., that they become so guilty and shame-filled that they are not doing their Christian duty of bringing more people into the fold. Eventually,  they become strong enough and armed enough through this propaganda that they are willing to approach their families and friends and here is where the violence and abuse comes into the picture.

Now the African is armed with the knowledge that he is better than his family and friends because he has been saved, therefore, if they do not abide by his command to join the Church he has the right to smite them. In essence he is not seeing himself as smiting them, he is smiting the Devil within them.

Africans are susceptible to this type of mentality as they believe in spirits, negative, that would do harm to them or their family and loved ones. These spirits, often displayed by so-called witch doctors, medicine men or priests; were considered evil or bad medicine, but the idea of the arch deceiver being a Devil was a new concept. But again, it was workable because it could align itself with the belief they already had.

Through the teachings of Christianity, which seldom was complete except in part for those who entered the pastoral college, seminary or the like, the masses are given allegory, proverbs, myth and smatterings of historical leanings. This too is in alignment with the African mindset in that many traditions where handed down generation to generation. You did not question the origins or ethicacy of these teachings, you accepted them as “Gospel.”  How easy then, the transplanting of this style of teaching into a mind of a people who were not encouraged to question what they were being taught by the Elders. To question the Elders was consider blasphemy and very disrespectful. Therefore, the African Christian would be hard pressed to know that much of the Bible is made up from various tales, legends and myths from ancient cultures and in some instances from their very own culture. How easy is it for them to find relationship and reference to what they had been taught over the ages, presenting itself through the teachings of the Bible and Christianity.

While this commentary does not specifically identify the militaristic aspect of conversion, I would like to stress that I am well aware of the Blood, Guns and Steel that was also brought to the continent. The continent was heavily divided upon the arrival of the Western European version of Christianity. This division made the African even more vulnerable to the manipulation of this New Religion. It also provide plenty of free labor and various other support to maintain the existence of these Missionaries and their Churches.₇, ₈

Woman Beaten to death accused of being a witch

The Mind Control/Hypnotic Trance

I believe that the most powerful tool for conversion of the African is mind control.  This comes through a series of  Gospel passages repeated over and over again. Songs and dances and musical instruments are all used to illicit the overall submission of the congregation.

Initially, this may start off rather small, and then grow to a huge congregation with a very large church. Because Africans have been using song, dance and words spoken repetitively in rituals to honor the gods, here again we have a very neat alignment with the African mind when it comes to spirituality. This mind control is very exquisite in its ability to untrain and retrain the African into believing that Jesus Christ is there for them and that they no longer need their “Old Primitive Gods” anymore. In fact, they don’t even need to venerate the Ancestors! This cuts to the core value of the African  mind that the Ancestors are guardians and sit close to God in the Spirit realm. They can be called upon to assist in their affairs. Their names are remembered and offerings are given to them to encourage them to help the community. To tell an African that his Ancestors can no longer hear them because when they die, they are dead and there is no more need to communicate with the dead until you die and meet them in heaven. So to be told to pray “for” them as you do not need them “to” pray for you, must cause cognitive dissonance in each one who hears this.

I always say that Jesus is the baddest Ancestor around considering the fact that he died and that was 2000+ years ago according to the story, but he is being venerated as if he is alive today. To the contrary, anyone else who dies can not be heard, cannot help you and if you do hear from them, you can be sure they are demonic spirits and “not” the voice of your Ancestors. So, quite capably, they toss the traditional acknowledgement of the Ancestors, the lineage of the African and give him another Ancestor, a European looking God. Again, since he is definitely an Ancestor, the African can accept him as he once accepted his own ancestors. In fact, due to the fact that the New Eurocentric Ancestor came down and shed his blood to save them, it tugs even more so at the African conscience. How many of their Ancestors have done such a feat? There are probably stories of such things happening but due to the indoctrination by the new God, that was all of the Devil, for only Jesus Christ was appointed as the Son of God to come and save the masses from original sin and utter death and damnation.

While in school, I asked my teacher, “What happened to Jesus when he ascended? Where did he go? Did he disappear into the sky, high above the mountains where no one could see him? Or did he keep going further out into space?  As the story goes, he returned flesh and blood, showing everyone that he was not a “Ghost” so if he did go somewhere, where was that?” I never got an answer and I went to Catholic school and nobody studies the bible stories like they did when I was in Catholic school. But I digress.

The European brand of Christianity in my estimation is just another form of what Africans had known for thousands if not millions of years. This is specifically true with regards to the Catholic missionaries who not only brought them a Single God made of three parts; a Holy Spirit and a plethora of saints who took on many of the attributes of their former Gods but, the rituals that included burnt offerings and blood sacrifice and various types of “vestments.” In essence, the African could relate and from what I have read, felt that Christianity was so comparable it was welcomed with open arms. However, there was just one thing they did not realize. Traditional religion and Christianity could not co-exist. They also did not realize that the Christian missionaries had no intention of allowing them to keep their traditions while attending their schools or be a part of their congregations. In fact, the Christian missionaries insisted that the traditional practices were immodest(nudity), barbaric (blood sacrifice of animals) and immoral (shameful) and actually caused the disdain of this New God and should be abolished at all costs. This propaganda went into a feverish pitch during the sermons, particularly by those who wanted to be close to this New God and therefore, holier and better than the others. Unfortunately, even this was in alignment with African Spirituality. It had been and still is believed that those who serve the Gods are closer to the Gods than those who do not. Those who serve the Gods are revered as keepers of the culture, the staff, the umbrella, the shrine, the temple, the grove and even the Gods. They are sanctified and much more able to communicate directly to the Divine than the uninitiated.

The Churches became the new coven, the new shrine house, the new temple and the keepers of these edifices became the new gods to the Africans. They simply traded in their old pair of shoes for a new one. But they are still dealing in shoes. ₉

Ghana Possessed

Directed by Linus Mork

53 minutes

 – 

Released 2008

 by

Danish Broadcasting Corporation

Today, in modern Africa, the radical and fast spreading Pentecostal Christianity is leading a spiritual crusade against the old gods of West Africa. The Pentecostal pastors are taking up the millennia-old battle with heathendom, trying once and for all to break the ancient alliance between the Ghanaians and their ancestral spirits. In the process, the women of Ghana are given a radically different role in the moralist worldview of modern Pentecostalism.

With intensely raw and naturally dramatic footage, Ghana Possessed gives us a rare and penetrating insight into a contemporary living religion where gods and spirits enter directly into people’s lives.

Pasted from https://www.academicvideostore.com/video/ghana-possessed

Let me refer here to an article by Mansa Musa, called, “Moving From the Plantation tothe Chur-chation” reading this article put so many things into perspective as to how the African can be hoodwinked into believing that Christianity is a better brand than their “old time religion.”

Another good read, particularly for those who are deeply rooted in either, is “War In Heaven” by Kyle Griffith. In his book he speaks about religious mind control and how it permeates “all” mass gatherings. It is basically the major component of crowd control, creating a mania that is contagious for most all of the participants. This is done through repetition and highly energetic displays of emotion. See chapter 12: Excerpt:

“Religious Mind Control
Q. Exactly how does religious mind control work?
A. It involves what modern psychologists call “operant conditioning”: altering behavior and mental programming by positive and negative reinforcement on the physical and sensory level.
The Theocrats strengthen this conditioning on the physical level by transmitting ideas and emotions directly into people’s subconscious minds by telepathy.
Religious mind-control techniques are easier to understand if you realize that the Theocrats use people’s own psychic powers to control other members of the congregation.”

Unfortunately, down through the ages, Africans have been controlled by their own version of spirituality. A version that encourages the person to seek outside of themselves redemption from their various life challenges and problems. They ARE NOT taught that the answer lies within and that they need only go there to find what they are looking for. In some instances, they actually voluntarily give up control over their lives to an outside source, giving it power over their lives, and allowing it to be the answer for whatever situation they come upon. Thus we see the pantheon of gods and deities that are supplicated in a variety of ways through rituals and trance to accomplish this. The predominance of this type of mind control is mostly seen in the so-called more evolved societies where much of the Spiritual traditions have been institutionalized. The representation of these institutions being shrine houses, temples or sacred places.

As far as the spiritual African traditions would tell you, this was a workable solution to the healing and maintenance of a sane and compliant society. People are taught the rules, protocols and rituals that they must follow in order to reach a certain level of spirituality, to ward off evil spirits, to gain happiness, riches, strong families and children. The African in good faith would make these supplications and if they fell short of the desired goal it was deemed a trick by some nefarious unseen spirit and therefore, more work had to be done to get rid of it. The African was blamed for entertaining this nefarious unseen spirit and given admonishment and more rituals.

Another aspect of this mind control was the insistence that sex was sinful and that anyone who participated in it was unholy unless they were married. In fact, those who took the vow of chastity and abandoned sex altogether were considered even more holy than others. This too was in alignment with many of the traditional African spirituality practices in that abstinence for periods of time were encouraged for the initiated. In the eyes of the African, the nuns, priests, pastors, etc., were initiates, therefore it was their duty to abide by the various protocols set up.
Ironically, today, you will find more “Spiritism Churches” or “Pentecostal Churches” being attended by most Africans who become Christians. Why? Because it is most in alignment with their traditional beliefs to begin with. In these churches people speak in tongues, do the laying on of hands and get caught up in the Holy Spirit. Demons are cast out, a joyful noise is made with songs, drumming, instrumentation and even dancing. There is something about this combination that is an elixir for the African Spirit. Spirit for the Spirits, they say, as they pour libations with some form of liquor of fermented  liquid. Ultimately, the religious trance that permeates traditional African Spirituality can be clearly seen in any church where Africans gather to worship the Lord and receive the Holy Spirit. No matter how much the pastor, evangelist or minister may defy the existence of these Ancestral spirits and the Gods who nurture them, they tend to appear on every occasion where all of the above components are present.
The African is truly a spiritual as well as religious being, therefore it is of no importance who is lying on the cross or hanging on the wall in their homes and Churches. It is what he represents and since they are keen in the knowledge that it is not the thing (rock, groves, stone, water, air, fire) but the power behind it, then, naturally if that power is emanating from a being that is European, well so be it.
I once entered my God-sister’s shrine room and noticed several carved dolls that were white. They did not necessarily have African features yet they were dressed as representations of some of the “higher ancestors.” I found this curious so I asked, “Auntie, why are those dolls white?” Her response was that they were not painted yet.
Here I will conclude on one more aspect of this dynamic; the whitening of the skin during rituals. In some instances it is done with powder in other instances it is done with clay. This change of the person’s persona by whitening can be seen all over Africa during their sacred rituals. Not all participants or priests are whitened but many are and here is where I began to understand even more why a white god is in alignment with African core beliefs on spirituality. There is a difference however minimal, but the idea that whitening of the skin makes you more spiritually in tuned than not, is a curious endeavor for the African. Now we see this not only in traditional rituals but in every day life, the whitening or lightening of the African’s skin tone. Along with the straightening of the hair and abandonment of traditional garments. When looked at with a global lens it makes perfectly good sense that Africans would become Christians. They are hardwired to become Christians.
The Invisible Band Behind the CurtainHere I wish to give an explanation from my point of view of what is happening for the African and how the Invisible Band Behind the Curtain is actually the orchestrator and manipulator of all of this. Somewhere in the African Historical record this propensity toward religious adoration was fine tuned and orchestrated. But by whom?
We hear this question quite often. Who built the pyramids and why are there these structures around the world, some older than even those at Giza. What happened on Planet Earth to make it the stomping ground for giant megalithic structures going back thousands upon thousands of years?
It is my opinion, that even these structures are a form of mind control. With that being the case, it makes sense that they would be all over the planet to control the masses. When looking at a designer garment or pair of shoes we can tell which designer did them as they contain a certain style. If you attempt to attribute it to another designer, the one who is aware of this will quickly correct you. Obviously, in my estimation at least, there had to be one designer or the other designers were trained by the elder designer. Thus structures around the world “resemble” one another while not exactly alike, they bare the same constitution. Is it possible that a group of people traveled the entire planet, took their slaves with them, hired new slaves when they got there and set out to build these megalith at these strategic places on the planet, heralding the equinoxes, the solstices, the planetary bodies, etc., etc., etc.?
Even if we speculate that the planet was one land mass, again, imagine the logistics of hauling folks and 2-3 ton rocks around the entire planet on “horseback”? “Oxen”?  Archaeologists insist that these structures took hundreds of years to build with very primitive tools, yet these structures are all over the Planet and many of them are comparable in age. Does that not speak of some type of intelligence that was guiding the construction of these buildings? Who is the Invisible Band Behind the Curtain?
And while they were constructing these edifices, they were also constructing religious rituals and protocols and dignitaries to maintain them. “Who Is the Invisible Band Behind the Curtain?”
Many of these “different” cultures share a common thread, that is, offerings to the “Gods” in various forms particularly blood offerings. Why? Was there a genetic manipulation going on? Did the Invisible Band Behind the Curtain need blood, and if so, why? And to this day, they are still receiving blood offerings in the bush and in the Church. There has to be something said about this as it relates to the human psyche and its fascination with blood offerings and offerings of energy to some outside force for that matter.
In Ancient times, the people saw their leaders as Gods or descendants of Gods. This holds true for all of humanity. While there may not be a perfusion of blood being offered, the energy that the blood represents, the life force that flows on and in the blood is still being offered up to our Leaders, Politicians, Presidents, and Superstars. Why is that such a common thread in all of humanity on this Planet? And how did that come about?
Who is the “Invisible Band Behind the Curtain”?
I strongly encourage anyone who got this far in reading this to read “Alien Interview” edited by Lawrence Spencer and “War In Heaven” by Kyle Griffith  PDF format (starting with chapter 10). These two books may bring to light and some answers to this very interesting Phenomenon.
Disclaimer: This was written for the purpose of discussion my own thoughts and conclusions. It is in no way an offense to anyone who may read it. In fact, I Thank you for reading this.
More Reading:  

• “Moving From the Plantation tothe Chur-chation”  by Mansa Musa

• Demons of God?  Commentary by Nana Baakan

• Cast Out Demons in the Name of Jesus

• They Came From the Stars Commentary by Nana Baakan

• Kailasa Temple in Ellora Caves – Built with Alien Technology? by Rajesh K

• The Shamanic View of Mental Illness, Pt. 2 Commentary by Nana Baakan

Footnotes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrmeOCAZFKk&index=12&list=PL3CB4BC341D8A1319

2. http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/2013/05/npca-board-member-installed-as-paramount-chief/

3. http://nicn.gov.ng/history1.php

4. http://kyg.nigeriagovernance.org/PersonsInOffices/index/appointed/page:19

5. http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2012/09/albinos-in-africa.html

6. http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/headline/118146-nigerian-fake-pastors-and-church-businesses-exposed-video.html

7. This Guy Was Getting a Demon Cast Out – You Won’t Believe What Interrupted Him!

8. http://sanctifiedchurchrevolution.blogspot.com/2014/05/african-guy-answers-cell-phone-while.html

9. http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/assemblies_of_god.htm

10. Pastor Orders Female Members To Remove Underwear So God Can Enter Their Bodies

11. http://newsone.com/2939386/rev-njohi-female-undergarments/

Who Was Behind the Cyberattack on Sony?

Who Was Behind the Cyberattack on Sony?

by GREGORY ELICH

The cyberattack on Sony Pictures unleashed a torrent of alarmist media reports, evoking the image of North Korean perfidy. Within a month, the FBI issued a statement declaring the North Korean government “responsible for these actions.” Amid the media frenzy, several senators and congresspersons called for tough action. Arizona Senator John McCain blustered, “It’s a new form of warfare that we’re involved in, and we need to react and react vigorously.” President Barack Obama announced his administration planned to review the possibility of placing North Korea on the list of states sponsoring terrorism, a move that would further tighten the already harsh sanctions on North Korea. “They caused a lot of damage, and we will respond,” Obama warned darkly. “We will respond proportionally, and we’ll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.”

In the rush to judgment, few were asking for evidence, and none was provided. Computer security analysts, however, were vocal in their skepticism.

In its statement, the FBI offered only a few comments to back its attribution of North Korean responsibility. “Technical analysis of the data deletion malware used in the attack revealed links to other malware that the FBI knows North Korean actors previously developed,” it reported, including “similarities in specific lines of code, encryption algorithms, data deletion methods, and compromised networks.” The FBI went on to mention that the IP addresses used in the Sony hack were associated with “known North Korean infrastructure.” Tools used in the attack “have similarities to a cyberattack in March of last year against South Korean banks and media outlets, which was carried out by North Korea.”

The major problem with the evidence offered by the FBI is that it is self-referential, all of it pointing back to the 2013 attack on South Korean banks and media that was carried out by the DarkSeoul gang. At that time, without supplying any supporting evidence, the United States accused North Korea of being behind DarkSeoul. In effect, the FBI argues that because the U.S. spread the rumor of North Korean involvement in the earlier attack, and some of the code is related, this proves that North Korea is also responsible for the Sony hack. One rumor points to another rumor as ‘proof,’ rendering the argument meaningless.

The logical fallacies are many. To date, no investigation has uncovered the identity of DarkSeoul, and nothing is known about the group. The linking of DarkSeoul to North Korea is purely speculative. “One point that can’t be said enough,” emphasizes Risk Based Security, “is that ‘attribution is hard’ given the nature of computer intrusions and how hard it is to ultimately trace an attack back to a given individual or group. Past attacks on Sony have not been solved, even years later. The idea that a mere two weeks into the investigation and there is positive attribution, enough to call this an act of war, seems dangerous and questionable.”

Consider some of the other flaws in the FBI’s statement. The IP addresses that were hard-coded in the malware used in the Sony hack belonged to servers located in Thailand, Poland, Italy, Bolivia, Singapore, Cypress, and the United States. The FBI implies that only the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the formal name for North Korea) could have used these servers. The Thai port is a proxy that is commonly used in sending spam and malware. The same is true of the Polish and Italian servers. All of the servers used in the Sony attack have been previously compromised and are among the many computers that are widely known and used by hackers and spam distributors. Anyone with the knowhow can use them.

Whether or not these machines were used is another matter. Hackers often use proxy machines with phony IP addresses to mislead investigators. No hackers use their own computers to launch an attack. Vulnerable systems are hijacked in order to route traffic. For the FBI to point to IP addresses either reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of cybersecurity or a cynical attempt to deliberately mislead the public.

The Sony hack also bears similarities with the 2012 Shamoon cyberattack on computers belonging to Saudi Aramco. Those responsible for that attack have never been identified either, although the United States accused Iran without providing any evidence. Using the FBI’s logic, one could just as easily argue that the Sony hack was the work of Iran. One groundless accusation is used to buttress another. As evidentiary matter, it is worthless. It should also be recalled that in 1998, the United States blamed Iraq for the Solar Sunrise hack into Defense Department computers, only for it be ultimately revealed that it was the act of a few teenagers.

Nor do the similarities in code between the Sony hack and the earlier Shamoon and DarkSeoul attacks indicate a shared responsibility. Malware is freely available on the black market. Hackers operate by purchasing or borrowing, and then tweaking commonly available software, including both illegal and legal components. Code is shared among hackers on forums, and malware is assembled by linking various elements together.

One of the components used in the Sony cyberattack was the RawDisk library from EldoS, a commercial application that allows direct access to Windows hardware bypassing security. Anyone can legally purchase this software. There is nothing to tie it to the DPRK.

“There’s a lot of malware that’s shared between different groups, and all malware is built on top of older malware,” reports Brian Martin of Risk Based Security. “They’re also built on top of hacking tools. For example, you’ll find lots of malware that uses pieces of code from popular tools like Nmap. Does that mean that the guy who wrote Nmap is a malware author? No. Does it mean he works for North Korea? No.”

Robert Graham of Errata Security regards the evidence offered by the FBI as “complete nonsense. It sounds like they’ve decided on a conclusion and are trying to make the evidence fit.” Graham adds: “There is nothing unique in the software. We know that hackers share malware on forums. Every hacker in the world has all the source code available.”

Trojan-Destover, the malware used in the Sony cyberattack, included at least six components utilized earlier by Shamoon and DarkSeoul. “Even in such damaging scenarios, the cyber attacker’s tools are reused,” points out Sariel Moshe of CyActive. “For them, if it worked once, tweak it a bit and it will work again. The attack on Sony demonstrates quite clearly that this method works quite well.” Indeed, while Shamoon and DarkSeoul are the most commonly mentioned predecessors to the Sony hack, it is thought that this software has been used on several occasions in the past against multiple targets.

The software utilized in the Sony cyberattack is atypical for a nation state. “It’s a night and day difference in quality,” says Craig Williams of Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group. “The code is simplistic, not very complex, and not very obfuscated.”

Four files used in the attack were compiled on a machine set to the Korean language. That fact proves nothing, notes computer security analyst Chris Davis. “That is pretty weak evidence. I could compile malware code that used Afrikaans and where the timestamp matched JoBerg in about five seconds.” Any reasonably competent hacker would change the language setting in order to misdirect investigators. Had North Korean conducted this attack, it certainly would have taken the basic step of changing the language setting on the machine used to compile code.

What about North Korean resentment over Sony Picture’s tasteless lowbrow comedy, The Interview, which portrays the assassination of DPRK leader Kim Jong-un? It is doubtful that Americans would find themselves any more amused by a foreign comedy on the subject of killing a U.S. president than the North Koreans are by The Interview.

Among the emails leaked by the cyberattack on Sony was a message from Bruce Bennett of the Rand Corporation. Bennett was a consultant on the film and opposed toning down the film’s ending. “I have been clear that the assassination of Kim Jong-un is the most likely path to a collapse of the North Korean government,” he wrote, adding that DVD leaks of the film into North Korea “will start some real thinking.” In another message, Sony CEO Michael Lynton responded: “Bruce – Spoke to someone very senior in State (confidentially). He agreed with everything you have been saying. Everything.” Lynton was also communicating with Robert King, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues in regard to the film.

The Western media portray North Korean reaction to The Interview as overly sensitive and irrational, while U.S. officials and a Rand Corporation consultant saw the film as having the potential to inspire the real-life assassination of Kim Jong-un. The scene of Kim’s assassination was not intended merely for so-called ‘entertainment.’

The mass media raced to attribute the Sony hack to the DPRK, based on its reaction to the Sony film. A closer look at the cyberattack reveals a more likely culprit, however. The group taking responsibility for the hack calls itself ‘Guardians of Peace’, and in one of the malware files the alternate name of ‘God’sApstls’ is also used. In the initial attack, no reference was made to the film, nor was it mentioned in subsequent emails the attackers sent to Sony. Instead, the hackers attempted to extort money: “Monetary compensation we want. Pay the damage, or Sony Pictures will be bombarded as whole.”

In an interview with CSO Online, a person represented as belonging to Guardians of Peace said the group is “an international organization…not under the direction of any state,” and included members from several nations. “Our aim is not at the film The Interview as Sony Pictures suggests,” the hacker wrote, but mentioned that the release of a film that had the potential of threatening peace was an example of the “greed of Sony Pictures.”

For two weeks following the cyberattack, the media harped on the subject of North Korean culpability. Only after that point did the Guardians of Peace (GOP) make its first public reference to The Interview, denying any connection with the DPRK. Yet another week passed before the GOP denounced the movie and threatened to attack theaters showing the film.

It appears that the narrative of North Korean involvement repeated ad nauseam by the media and the U.S. government presented a gift to the hackers too tempting to pass up. The GOP played to the dominant theme and succeeded in solidifying the tendency to blame the DPRK, with the effect of ensuring that no investigation would pursue the group.

For its part, the Obama Administration chose to seize the opportunity to bolster its anti-North Korea policy in preference over tracking down the culprits.

There are strong indications that the cyberattack involved one or more disgruntled Sony employees or ex-employees, probably working together with experienced hackers. The malware used against Sony had been modified to include hard-coded file paths and server names. System administrator user names and passwords were also hard-coded. Only someone having full access with system administrator privileges to Sony’s computer network could have obtained this information.

The GOP could have hacked into the Sony system months beforehand in order to gather that data. But it is more likely that someone with knowledge of Sony’s network configuration provided the information. Arguing against the possibility that critical information had been siphoned beforehand through a hack, cybersecurity expert Hemanshu Nigam observes, “If terabytes of data left the Sony networks, their network detection systems would have noticed easily. It would also take months for a hacker to figure out the topography of the Sony networks to know where critical assets are stored and to have access to the decryption keys needed to open up the screeners that have been leaked.”

The most likely motivation for the attack was revenge on the part of current or former Sony employees. “My money is on a disgruntled (possibly ex) employee of Sony,” Marc Rogers of CloudFlare wrote. “Whoever did this is in it for the revenge. The info and access they had could have easily been used to cash out, yet, instead, they are making every effort to burn Sony down. Just think what they could have done with passwords to all of Sony’s financial accounts.”

Nation states never conduct such noisy hacking operations. Their goal is to quietly infiltrate a system and obtain information without detection. Sony had no data that would have been of interest to a nation state. Computer security blogger The Grugq wrote, “I can’t see the DPRK putting this sort of valuable resource onto what is essentially a petty attack against a company that has no strategic value.”

It would have been reckless for a North Korean team to draw attention to itself. Cybersecurity specialist Chris Davis says, “All the activity that was reported screams Script Kiddie to me. Not advanced state-sponsored attack.” Davis adds, “Well, the stupid skeleton pic they splashed on all the screens on the workstations inside Sony…is not something a state-sponsored attack would do…Would ANY self-respecting state-sponsored actor use something as dumb as that?” The consensus among cybersecurity experts is clear, Davis argues. “The prevalent theory I am seeing in the closed security mailing lists is an internet group of laid off Sony employees.”

Following his cybersecurity firm’s investigation, Kurt Stammberger of Norse echoes that view. “Sony was not just hacked. This is a company that was essentially nuked from the inside. We are very confident that this was not an attack master-minded by North Korea and that insiders were key to the implementation of one of the most devastating attacks in history.”

“What is striking here is how well they knew to exploit Sony’s vulnerabilities,” reports Nimrod Kozlovski of JVP Labs. “The malware itself is not creative or new; there are plenty of actors that could have manifested this particular attack.” The hackers “knew more about the company, Sony, and its vulnerabilities than they knew, or needed to know, about hacking.”

As an indication of the hacker’s real motivation, it should be noted that the first communications focused on a different issue than the Sony film. The content of an email sent by the GOP to the IDG News Service refers to Sony’s restructuring, in which thousands of employees lost their jobs: “Sony and Sony Pictures have made terrible racial discrimination and human rights violation, indiscriminate tyranny and restructuring in recent years. It has brought damage to a lot of people, some of whom are among us. Nowadays, Sony Pictures is about to prey on the weak with a plan of another indiscriminate restructuring for their own benefits. This became a decisive motive for our action.” In an email to The Verge, the GOP wrote, “We want equality. Sony doesn’t…We worked with other staff with similar interests to get in.”

Seeking to diffuse tensions, North Korea proposed to conduct a joint investigation with the United States into the Sony cyberattack. Predictably, the United States quickly rebuffed the offer. National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh arrogantly responded, “If the North Korean government wants to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages this attack caused.” North Korea can hardly be expected to accept blame for an act it did not commit. But getting to the truth of the matter was the farthest thing from the Obama Administration’s mind. Similarly, U.S. officials are ignoring requests from cybersecurity experts to be allowed to analyze the Destover code. “They’re worried we’ll prove them wrong,” Robert Graham concludes.

The Obama Administration’s outrage over the Sony attack contains more than a small measure of hypocrisy. It was the United States that launched the Stuxnet attack that destroyed many of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. According to a Washington Post article published in 2013, the United States conducted 231 cyber operations throughout the world two years before. The National Security Agency, as is now well known, regularly hacks into computer networks, scooping up vast amounts of data. The GENIE program, the Post reported, was projected to have broken into and installed implants in 85,000 computers by the end of 2013. It was reported that GENIE’s next phase would implement an automated system that could install “potentially millions of implants” for gathering data “and active attack.” According to former deputy of defense secretary William J. Lynn III, “The policy debate has moved so that offensive options are more prominent now.”

Contrast the mild treatment the media gave to the recent large-scale hacks into Target, Home Depot and JP Morgan, in which millions of credit cards and personal information were stolen, with the coverage of the cyberattack on Sony Pictures. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that political considerations are driving the media furor over the latter case.

After six years in office, the Obama Administration has yet to engage in dialogue or diplomacy with North Korea. It prefers to maintain a wall of hostility, blocking any prospect of progress or understanding between the two nations.

Already, North Korean websites have been targeted by persistent denial of service operations. Whether the attacks were launched by a U.S. government cyber team or independent hackers inspired by media reports is not known. In any case, President Obama has already promised to take unspecified action against the DPRK. Actual responsibility for the Sony attack is irrelevant. Backed by media cheerleading, U.S officials are using the cyberattack as a pretext to ratchet up pressure on North Korea. Any action the Obama Administration takes is likely to trigger a response, and we could enter a dangerous feedback loop of action/counteraction.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Committee to Defend Democracy in South Korea and a columnist for Voice of the People. He is also one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Committee to Defend Democracy in South Korea and a columnist for Voice of the People. He is also one of the co-authors ofKilling Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language.

Nana's Christmas Rant "Christmas & the New Age Movement"

Nana’s Christmas Rant

xmas traffic accident

Well, the holiday season is upon us and here we go again. I must admit that 2014 was one hell of a year for everybody on Planet Earth. We got mass extinctions of animals and humans, executions of guilty and innocent, carnage, disease, plummeting gas prices along with Pres. Obama’s approval ratings, terrorists so nondescript that they weren’t sure what to call them, more wars and occupation that you can shake a stick at, scandals of the seedy kind, and various weather anomalies that boggle the mind. It has been a war of truth and lies and truth and more lies and confusion to boot with the common phrase being, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

The so-called alternative media has stuck its fingers into the corporate pie and are now mouthing so much disinfo you have to take out your ouji board to determine who is moving things around. We have had so many false flag announcements about the coming apocalypse it makes your head spin, as the checkerboard trails cross the skies, the denials of Mon”santan”o, the cover-ups on Mars, the loose change falling of Tower 7 and 3d Holograms you can cuddle with. I mean, we have practically seen it all except the missing MH370.

We have had a herd of celebs take their last breaths and mourn the lost of a woman who openly proclaim Michelle Obama as a tranny! There is so much more that I could list here but it would detract from my original reason for this post.

I guess I have a bone to pick with the so-called NEW AGERS! I don’t understand  how they can continue to persist in the most commercialized cycle of insanity that hits this planet every year moving into the so-called New Year. Now, I am not pointing a finger at ALL of them, so let me just say MOST OF THEM!

All year round we get the love and light spew. We get the “we are awakening” or the “awakening is upon us” or the “Guardian Forces” and the “Ashtar Command” are helping us, or even we are “moving into the 4-5th dimensions.” How do we do all that and still celebrate Christmas?

Channelers Alert! 

If you are channeling, and particularly if you are channeling “Jesus” or Sanada as some call him, how in the world do you celebrate Christmas? Do you mean to tell me that he is not telling you the truth about this holiday? Do you mean to tell me that he is encouraging you to go out and purchase a tree and various other odds and ends so that you can celebrate his birth? Did he not tell you the true story, the whole shebang, the real deal about all this? If he did not, then who, pray tell are you channeling?

I have subscribed to various “Love and Light” blogs and websites. I have also subscribed to various UFO stuff on the internet. So I thought the above picture was quite apropos for my rant today. Seriously, as Mr. Claus is traversing through the inner and outer planes surely, even he knows the TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTMAS. He has to be multi-dimensional to be in all those places around the world at one time, wouldn’t you think? How come ain’t nobody channeling Santa Claus?? He is real, right?

But I digress. My real rant is how unnerving it is to receive “Season’s Greetings”, “Merry Christmas” etc., etc., etc. from these so-called “New Agers”. Don’t they know that it’s all a hoax, at best and quite fabricated? If they are contacting “Ancient Aliens” and/or “Mary” haven’t they been told that this is a bunch of boulderdash to just grab people’s money?

Well, I am seriously questioning these folks now. It was bad enough that they had folks running helter-skelter over 2012. But here we are 2 years later and they have not deterred in their participation in this horrendous disinformation campaign called Christmas. As spiritual beings, they should know the truth and as beings of integrity, they should live by it. Otherwise, these 50 million channelers are just in it for the money. What other reason could there be? They have to be politically correct and keep in touch with their constituency. That is, if they step too far away from the status quo, they may lose their bread and butter, fine cars and nice houses and expensive seminars that they invite folks to come to to ASCEND.

THIS ASCENSION THING MUST BE A CROCK OF BS!

If people are truly ascending, channeling and talking to ET’s how can they participate in this massive disinfo campaign and call themselves true leaders of the movement? I am beginning to seriously question the authenticity of the so-called ASCENSION movement when I see ASCENDED MASTERS, not pulling the coat tail of their followers and telling them to stay away from the tripe. Or, do these so-called ASCENDED MASTERS have a hidden agenda? It just makes you wonder. Where are they during the times when we are sold a huge hypnotic bill of goods, that keeps us treading for another year and/or lifetime, trying to keep our heads above water on a Prison Planet such as this one. If these folks are willing to defy all logic and participate in this scheme of disenfranchisement, then it certainly makes anything they say after the said, ‘New Year’ holiday, dubious and base.

These people, have played on the heart strings of the masses for decades if not longer than that. I assume the so-called NEW AGE movement has been going on for more than 50 years from checking out the print date on many of these materials. These folks have been giving information about the Sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies, the other worlds, the other worldlies, the inner earth, magnetosphere, the comets, asteroids and errantly massive dustballs and light/space ships, orbs, etc. and they have not come to the conclusion that Christmas is disinfo. How is that possible?


Maybe I will answer my own question….
They are not really channeling anything. They are not channeling beings of high integrity.They are not listening to whomever they are channeling.They are reticent to change things in their personal lives for fear of losses.They don’t want to upset the boat.They are liars.They are all frauds.
Believe me, I am inclined to believe all of the above but most inclined to believe the last one. If these folks are truly contacting these entities and they are not adjusting their lifestyles accordingly then something is really and truly wrong with the so-called NEW AGE movement.

Sony Propaganda

The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On
Sony Propaganda
by BILL BLUNDEN

A few days ago both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal cited anonymous officials who claimed that North Korea was responsible for the recent cyberattack on Sony. These agenda-setting elements of the press conveyed the information without question, despite the fact that the evidence provided has been (as journalist Kim Zetter put it) flimsy. Contemplating the corresponding headlines is instructive.

As I wrote in the Times back in September of 2014, sophisticated anti-forensic technology is actively being developed by both American intelligence services and private sector companies. To think that other countries aren’t doing the same is naive. False flag attacks are standard spy tradecraft.

Furthermore high ranking, ostensibly credible, national security officers like Keith Alexander, James Clapper, and John Brennan have demonstrated the tendency to lie to the American public. Not small innocent lies but rather colossal brazen lies. Lies regarding essential constitutional rights. Why, pray tell, should we trust what we’ve been told by officials?

Your author contacted Zetter to offer the proverbial high-five and she voiced her frustration about the utter lack of skepticism by reporters like Sanger and Perlroth. Blind acceptance is part of the miracle of modern propaganda. As Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman described in their classic text Manufacturing Consent the large multinational corporations that constitute the mainstream press are able to frame debate and control the acceptable boundaries of public discourse by leveraging an apparatus which burns through literally hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Of course this isn’t the only instance in which the stalwarts of the corporate media have botched their job as society’s watchdogs. Anyone following what’s happening over in Ukraine will also notice an astounding groupthink on behalf of the press corp. What’s painted as Russian expansion is really a NATO expansion. Putin is responding to Western incursion. Even an establishment figure like Henry Kissinger admits as much (and when a guy like Kissinger starts making sense it’s a sign that something is seriously amiss).

Asia Pacific

U.S. Said to Find North Korea Ordered Cyberattack on Sony

North Korean Role in Sony Hack Presents Quandary for U.S.

All of this underscores the role of modern propaganda as an incredible tool of social control, a textbook application of the science of coercion. The public is so distracted with celebrity gossip, mindless entertainment, wildly inflated alleged national security threats, and empty consumption that they fail to recognize the unraveling of our social fabric. Officials hyperventilate over an obscure contingent of jihadists while disregarding far greater, but less spectacular, threats.

Sadly the countervailing ideologies and organizations that served to keep capitalism in check in the aftermath of World War II have dwindled. Hence the plutocrats who funded the neoliberal revolution have a captive audience and they’re free to kick and beat the rest of us with relative impunity, while sanctioned policies like Quantitative Easing and offshoring allow them to swallow up nearly all economic gains.

And to think that former NSA director Keith Alexander had the audacity to claim that Chinese cyber espionage entailed the greatest transfer of wealth in history? Never mind the trillions spent on the self-perpetuating military conflict in the Middle East.

As inequality grows and the global climate becomes less habitable, the immiseration of the average Joe will inevitably lead to mobilization. The ruling class is well aware of what happened to French aristocrats in the eighteenth century. To save themselves from a similar fate they will switch the cogs of the Mighty Wurlitzer into high gear to give voice to popular discontent and subsequently co-opt emerging movements. That’s how fascism normally works. Mass interception will also be employed to identify activists and independent thinkers who see through the deluge of clever propaganda. Likewise a militarized police force guided by programs like Garden Plot will be waiting in the wings as a last resort.

When this juncture is reached, where a critical mass of people are angry enough to take action, the likelihood of a positive outcome will depend in part upon people acquiring access to alternative sources of accurate information. In this way organizations can foster accountability and properly apply the sustained pressure necessary to alter large systems. Looking out over a media landscape flooded by corporate money and an endless series of murky deep-pocketed foundations, a modest reader–funded outfit in Petrolia, California, is an encouraging sign: Season’s Greetings CounterPunch.

Bill Blunden is an independent investigator whose current areas of inquiry include information security, anti-forensics, and institutional analysis. He is the author of several books, including The Rootkit Arsenal and Behold a Pale Farce: Cyberwar, Threat Inflation, and the Malware-Industrial Complex. Bill is the lead investigator at Below Gotham Labs.




Sony Propaganda » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Anti-Police Organizing in the Wake of Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s Death

Anti-Police Organizing in the Wake of Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s Death

by MICHELLE MATISONS

Cop Killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley Had Pocket Full of $100 Bills – But No Job or Home

Remember how the 9/11 attack led people to cancel or pull back from anti-globalization protests?  It appears a similar dynamic could be at work as a shocking event challenges and divides a growing and effective movement making serious headway.  Like anti-globalization protests before it, the anti-police brutality/ policing movement is going through its own birth pangs as the tactics debate (when is property violence appropriate?) and issues such as how to foreground anti-black racism (#BlackLivesMatter vs. #AllLivesMatter) have taken center stage in the multifaceted and large scale resistance efforts underway.

Saturday, December 20th, was a big day for movement news.  While Minnesota’s Mall of America protest had people occupying space in the US’s largest mall to demand an end to police violence, half way across the country in Brooklyn, two police officers were shot and killed by a young black man who had ostensibly posted on social media before the shootings about his intention to “put wings on pigs”, citing revenge for the deaths of Brown and Garner as motive.  The accused shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, shot himself dead on a nearby subway platform after shooting the officers.  As of Sunday afternoon, there is little information and much speculation about the accused murderer’s life (including that the murders were part of a counter-intelligence plot to discredit the movement and justify extreme force).  Much is uncertain, but it’s certain that the NYPD is already using this to suppress protest, repress entire communities, and further foment divisive public relations–especially with NYC Mayor deBlasio.  How can recent police union behavior and statements be considered anything but a naked admission of a police force’s own extra-legal/ paramilitary ambitions?

At this writing we do know a few things for certain: the corporate state’s policing apparatus will do everything in its power to use this event as a further call to arms against protesting U.S. residents and communities of color.  They will attempt not only to discredit a growing direct action-based movement, but also to aggressively attack protest groups and individuals they have been trying to get their hands on anyway.  If Ismaaiyl Brinsley had been arrested  and charged with the killing of two police officers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, clearly the anti-policing movement would be having very different debates and discussions.  Now, in his death, many people righteously struggle to contextualize his motives or opportunistically use his actions for their own political reasons.

Not that probing Brinsley’s motives is entirely irrelevant–he shot a woman, possibly an ex-girlfriend, before the officers, for example– but the movement can hurt itself by participating in the posthumous quasi-legalistic media charade of “nailing down” his motives or state of mind.  (This activity already inculcates participants in the state’s judgmental logic of condemnation/ exoneration–echoing media character assassinations of murder by police victims like Brown and Martin.)   What if he was acting in concert with counter-intelligence forces? What if Mao’s little red book was in Brinsley’s pocket?  What if he was an active member of a local Cop Watch group?  What if he was a well-known local homeless man struggling with mental illness and addiction?

Initial activist reactions offer a range of responses: some grapple with the delicate issue of expressing compassion about the shooter’s life, death, and family; some timidly, or not so timidly, tiptoe around self-defense concepts and a deep understanding of the extreme nature of “revolutionary suicide”; some routinely denounce Brinsley’s actions–acting as guardians of the “real non-violent movement” against  “unstable violent outsiders”; some have decided that was a police action he got entangled in.  Then there’s those (new to the issue white activists, I am talking to you) who may have been active and supportive of the anti-police brutality movement, but will use this as an excuse to pull back.  (Controversial events function as a movement’s filtering process, losing people who are too challenged to keep fighting and were just waiting for a chance to fold anyway.)

If there’s anything I am reminded of by this event, it’s the power of social movements, and anti-racist struggles in particular.  For me, there is a connection between the cop murders and the movement.  Before you jump down my throat insisting that I am “feeding the cops’ ideology” by saying this–hear me out, please, and don’t take my statements out of context.  Since the drug war and mass incarceration/ deportation practices, many black and brown lives have been destroyed.  You don’t have to be a front lines long term activist to have strong opinions about policing and institutional racism in America, and feel hopeless in the face of it, too.  Frustration and anger is woven into the everyday fabric of people’s lives, and this includes individual consciousness, rhetoric, and self-understanding.  Add to this an endless flow of social media, news commentary, and live feeds of protests and demonstrations all over the U.S.  Some people may not be able to attend protests for various reasons (work, childcare, transportation, not living close to one, or a shy demeanor) but social media offers a strong way to feel emotionally connected to events since Ferguson began.

This access and ability to connect is both reason for the movement’s effectiveness and a reason to prepare for more controversial actions taken up by individuals in the name of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or against violent police generally. (And then there’s always police counterinsurgency activities…)  In a large, multifaceted, international movement such that the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!/ anti-policing movement has become, no one can ultimately judge who’s a protestor or a non-protestor, who cares or doesn’t care, about “the issues”. (Who has an authentic political consciousness gauge and where can I get one?) We can only state if we support certain actions as part of strategies our organizations or ideologies endorse.

I believe, from what I understand about Brinsley’s biographical facts and his presumed state of mind before the murders, he understood himself as a target of racist policing.  Go figure: young, black, and male in the U.S. A. But, As Dr. Johanna Fernandez wrote in CounterPunch, he could have also been acting in concert with authorities to execute a state plot to discredit the movement.  We will never know the facts here, and it shouldn’t deflect from our understanding of institutionalized racism, anyway.

Whether or not Brinsley acted alone or in concert with the state, his life had a truly tragic end.  If we admit understanding or empathy with people espousing extreme tactics — even cop murder — to express oppositional feelings, are we only throwing the police state, and its rabid NYPD, another reason for street level preemptive attack? (As if it ever needed a reason.  We’ve clearly seen over the decades, if the state doesn’t have a reason to justify aggression it’ll make one up.)  What about attempts to understand how social pressures like racist policing and mass incarceration damage people–like Ismaaiyl Brinsley? If we deny a careful consideration of the incalculable impacts movements can have, which include tapping into very real frustrations/ psychological dynamics leading individuals to act alone or as police agents, we sacrifice any potential unity than can be derived in a process of self-reflection and greater political awareness. Collective analysis may not lead to the unity of a shared position, but it could lead to an “agree to disagree” unity or a commitment to explore unpopular perspectives.  Something beyond simple condemnation or exultation is called for here.

It’s a daunting situation and the corporate state wins again if we play into the terms of engagement it always sets by the very nature of its power.  If Ismaaiyl Brinsley had survived and faced his accusers in court, we would see the movement split around “just” court procedures and outcomes.  Some would want him evaluated to qualify for mental health rehabilitation services, some would want him routinely punished, and some would call for his freedom, with an understanding his actions were committed under extreme duress due to the pernicious police state apparatus (a kind of “black rage” defense– if you will.)  From the looks of his social media posts, he knew he was probably going to die Saturday.

I shudder to think about what the state would do to Brinsley, and how the movement would split around his “just” punishment and desirable “rehabilitation.” (How are we going to rehabilitate psychotic racist police?  Any ideas?)  We would have to painfully endure a real trial of the Left’s anti-policing/ abolitionist positions. Instead, we are left to grapple with three dead bodies, many unanswered questions, and a big question mark about our ability to buoy the turbulence of building and sustaining a mass movement, focused specifically on the deep and festering wound of racist police violence, in the age of social media activism.

On Tuesday police Commissioner William Bratton said Ismaaiyl was carrying $100 bills in his pocket.
But he had no job or home.The Yeshiva World reported:

If we are going to posthumously speculate on Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s life, dare I suggest we use the very commitment to institutional analysis and human compassion that has served as a foundation of the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!/ anti-policing movement–and previous anti-racist movements– since its inception?  As the saying goes, let’s “keep our eyes on the prize.”

Michelle Renee Matisons, Ph.D. has  written for Counterpunch, Black Agenda Report, Z Magazine, Mint News Press, the NJ Decarcerator, Rethinking Schools, Alternet, and other publications. She can be reached at michrenee@gmail.com.

Anti-Police Organizing in the Wake of Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s Death » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Undercover Cop Pulls Gun and Threatens Oakland Police Brutality Protesters | Alternet

Hysterical!

LOL, these assholes, sorry my bad language, but if they are trying to have an American Spring, they are really doing it all wrong. That stuff worked in the Middle East. 

People here have seen them do it over there, so now they are very suspicious and are ready with easy social media access to tell all. 

What part of retarded do they not understand? Even switching sides is retarded. LOL, now they can go from breaking the law to keeping the law, when they were just seen tearing up shit??? I’m sorry, but sometimes 4 letter words says it all!!


Undercover Cop Pulls Gun and Threatens Oakland Police Brutality Protesters | Alternet

December 11, 2014  |  (Editor’s Note: This report has been updated with new developments at 8.30 PM PST on Thursday).A white undercover California Highway Patrol (CHP) detective pulled a gun and threatened protesters at Wednesday night’s march to end racist policing and police brutality in Oakland, California.He was seen losing his cool and pointing the gun at protesters and a photographer before other uniformed police arrived to arrest a black protester, as can be seen on numerous videos of the incident on the Twitter feeds, #berkeleyprotest and #oaklandprotest.The incident was photographed and posted to storify.com and #oaklandprotest, where it quickly went viral. These Twitter feeds have been documenting the ongoing East Bay protests following the two grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City, in which white officers who killed unarmed black men escaped facing charges.Late Thursday, the Los Angeles Times extensively quoted California Highway Patrol Chief Avery Browne discussing the incident, where Browne concluded that “no one has provided any evidence that the officers were inappropriate in what they did.”Browne recounted his chronology of the event. He said the gun-pointing detective was one of several undercover cops posing as demonstrators at Wednesday’s march in Oakland. He the detective said a fellow undercover officer had been “attacked” by protesters. He said the detective who pulled the gun told him, “Chief, I didn’t know if I was going to make it out of this thing alive.”That line of defense–that a police officer is entitled to use deadly force while doing his job if he fears for his life–is the standard in law that absolves police officers from facing charges for harm caused by excessive force. That was seen as the legal linchpin that allowed two grand juries to exonerate the white officers who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in Staten Island.The protests across the country demand, among other things, that this standard protecting police who lose control and use excessive force must be changed. They say, as the LA Times’ report indicates, that police who too quickly rely on deadly weapons know that they can say those magic words–they feared for their lives–and escape accountability.The CHP Browne made another telling admission to the LA TImes, saying that many undercover officers were spooked by protesters who recognized that they were cops and called them out in front of other protesters. The Times wrote:“The CHP and other law enforcement agencies have been using plainclothes officers to observe and gather information about the protests, and Browne said tensions have risen among officers as several protesters have posted pictures of themselves on social media claiming to be armed with handguns, rocks and explosive devices.”Despite Wednesday’s incident, Browne said he will continue to deploy plainclothes officers to gather intelligence from protesters. Officers have also been creating Twitter accounts, on which they don’t identify themselves as police, in order to monitor planned demonstrations.”This video, posted by WeCopWatch on YouTube on Thursday, identified two other undercover Oakland police officers who posed as protesters and were unmasked by marchers. However, there is nothing in that exchange that can be described as threatening.The Oakland incident comes after police in nearby Berkeley rioted this past Saturday night, lunging into the crowd and using smoke bombs, nightsticks and tear gas to disperse a crowd of several hundred protesters. That confrontation led the Berkeley police to reconsider their tactics during protests on the following nights.But as the protest marchers crossed into other police jurisdictions, closing several interstate highways, other police agencies, such as the California Highway Patrol, said they would respond forcefully.This latest development shows that police are not changing their use of excessive force as the protesters have been demanding. It is a sobering reminder of how entrenched police policies and practices are, which is one reason that the protests are continuing. Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of “Count My Vote: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting” (AlterNet Books, 2008).

My Dream – House of Fraser

“cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit” The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies.

Okay, I know that you all think I am crazy because I am always talking about what I dreamed, yada, yada, yada. But I am going to tell this dream!

I am somewhere, I can’t exactly tell where it is. Maybe a store, a mall, a hotel lobby it seemed to be a combination of all there. And this young man come into the lobby wearing a clearly oversized sear sucker suit.

http://crujonessociety.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/seersucker.jpg
He looked a little bit like this dude in the picture but a little slimmer and the suit was from back in the day and clearly too large for him. He must have thought that I had something to say about it but actually, I remember those suits and thought it quite interesting that anyone would be wearing them now.
He walks over to me and volunteered this information.
“You know, this is one of Bill Cosby’s old suits. He let me have it. He is much taller than I am so the pants are a little long, but he wore this a while back. It’s a Fraser Men’s suit.”
I respond, “Really, I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, Fraser wanted Cosby to wear their suits, it was an endorsement kind of thing.”
“No kidding.”
“Yep, but after a while Cosby wanted to wear more stylish suits. Fraser suits became more stylish over time. But then Cosby didn’t want their endorsement any more, he wanted to wear what he wanted to wear.”
By now this young man is fashionably dressed in a very nice suit that was form fitting and more tailored than the old model sear sucker suits were.

 “I can see that.” I respond
“Well, that’s what put Cosby in trouble. He was going against the agreement. You know, the agreement was that things will keep quiet as long as he wore Fraser suits. You think that’s crazy don’t you, that something as simple as an endorsement will cause the downfall of a person in the industry, right?”
“Well, yeah, who would think that something like that would hurt anyone. You should be able to say yes or no to an endorsement, correct?”
“Nope, not in the industry, you don’t say no to an endorsement. You take the endorsement and keep it moving.
It came out a few years ago, and Cosby made some kind of arrangement with them and things blew over. It came out again and again, Cosby made an arrangement and it died down, but this time, well as you can see, it has gone viral and Cosby is in deep trouble.
This is how it happens. Cosby is at a party, something like this, a gathering or something and there are folks all around. He is dressed rather fashionably and there are young girls all over the place.
One young lady is standing directly in front of him. In fact, she is standing very close to him. Nice looking young lady, I might add.
Cosby puts his hands on the young lady’s waist like so.” He is now demonstrating using me as the young lady in his story.
“One thing leads to another and the young lady and Cosby end up doing what that kind of thing leads to. They go off and no one says anything, but everyone knows cause they are doing it too. You look around and folks are all coupled off with other folks, and ain’t nobody married to them folks cause it ain’t that kind of party.
There are also watchers here. They keep the tabs on all the things that are going on. If any of these folks step out of line, well you know what happens. It just was Cosby’s turn to go down.”
I am incredulous of this story and I quickly remove his hands from around my waist.
“Dude, you got to be making this up, right?”
“Not at all, I ain’t making it up, I am telling you what happened to Cosby and what happens to a lot of them folks if they don’t tow the line. It’s just that simple. In fact, it wasn’t just girls.”
Here he shows me a picture of Cosby kissing a man. It looked like it may have even been him but I couldn’t really make it out in the dream as the face of the other guy was positioned such that it was not discernible.
“Aww, come on dude, Cosby was messing with men too! You must be kidding me, or you are straight up lying.”
“Okay, you can believe what you want to believe, but I am not lying, it’s the truth, that’s all I got to say.”

I woke up before I could ask this dude why he was telling me all this. I decide to look it up, Frazier men’s suits, believing that my dream wouldn’t actually give me the name of something that was really real, I mean even I doubt my dreams sometimes. No matter how many times they show me stuff, information, I just go, okay… But that has been my history with my dreams, I get names and places and stories that turn out to be true. So I look it up and found out that there actually is a line of men’s suits call Frazier, the spelling is FRASER. Not only that, these suits are mad in the UK called House of Fraser http://www.houseoffraser.co.uk/Suits+Tailoring/S213,default,sc.html.

Okay, let me start by saying this shocked me! And then I did a little research on this company.
Well, I wasn’t able to find a direct connection of his endorsements, but I find the endorsements he did make quite interesting.

What does Bill Cosby endorse?
According to our research engine:
Bill Cosby’s major endorsements are reported to include:
Jell-O
Kodak
Ford
Coca-Cola
E. F. Hutton
Walt Disney World
Texas Instruments
Pasted from http://celebrities.findthebest.com/q/149/926/What-does-Bill-Cosby-endorse

In this article:
BILL COSBY, CELEBRITY FASHION, COSBY, MAURY LEVY, MAURY Z. LEVY,PLAYBOY, PLAYBOY INTERVIEW, THE COSBY SHOW
Bill Cosby: The Playboy Fashion Guide Interview
In Playboy magazine and the Playboy Guides (1979-1989) on September 2, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I found that Cosby’s tailor who has made all his suits and fitted him so well for the I Spy series is named Cy Mann and his business is called Cy Mann Clothier, LTD, however it has since been taken over by Sarto Sebastian, and the company is now called Sebastian Tailor… http://www.sartosebastian.com/.

I don’t know what happened at this point to Cy Mann or why his business is no longer operating. I couldn’t find any connection to the House of Fraser or even why Sarto Sebastian took over the Cy Mann Clothier, Ltd. It was a long day with lots of other information but no direct link. I would read the above listed article because it describes Cosby’s propensity towards style and grace in his wardrobe of suits, even though lately he has been dressing more casually. I can only surmise that the dream is telling something about that but not quite sure of the connection to that and this current avalanche of a scandal.

 House of Fraser China deal = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10744393/House-of-Fraser-Chinese-tycoon-agrees-deal-to-buy-89pc.html
Current CEO John King = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Fraser
• Chinese conglomerate acquires 89% stake in House of Fraser
http://www.thedrum.com/…/chinese-retailer-acquires-89-stake-house-fraser-48…
• Apr 13, 2014 – House of Fraser executive chairman Don McCarthy will step down from his … “Since we took the company private in 2006, John King and his team … closely with [CEO} John King and his management team to enhance the …

How House of Fraser reclaimed the High Street by (gasp!) listening to its customers
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2645567/How-House-Fraser-reclaimed-High-Street-gasp-listening-customers.html#ixzz3KTzoXDoc 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Last month’s Bafta TV awards saw Judi Dench and Helen Mirren take a back seat as another name stepped into the limelight.
After years of High Street obscurity, the department store House of Fraser staged an almost complete red-carpet takeover.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Amber le Bon, Susanna Reid and Kate Garraway, among others, all wore beautiful swishing floor-length bejewelled gowns sold by the store. It was a fashion coup that, overnight, propelled House of Fraser back into middle-class consciousness.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2645567/How-House-Fraser-reclaimed-High-Street-gasp-listening-customers.html#ixzz3KU01F400
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
In 1959, High Street department store group House of Fraser bought Harrods.

Bitter feud

Mr Al Fayed bought Harrods with his brother in 1985 In 1985 the store returned to private ownership when Egypt-born Mr Al Fayed and his brother Ali bought House of Fraser for £615m, snatching it from mining conglomerate Lonrho.
Mr Al Fayed bought Harrods with his brother in 1985
The takeover bid was bitterly fought as Mr Al Fayed had previously served on Lonrho’s board but left nine months later after a disagreement.
Lonrho’s director, the late Tiny Rowland, took his campaign against the takeover to the Department of Trade who duly held an inquiry.
The subsequent report, issued in 1990, concluded that the Al Fayeds had lied about their background and their wealth.
“We are satisfied that the image they created between November 1984 and March 1985 of their wealthy Egyptian ancestors was completely bogus.”
The public feud between the businessmen appeared to reach reconciliation in 1993 however Mr Rowland later accused Mr Al Fayed of breaking into a safety deposit box held at the store.
This dispute was later settled with Mr Rowland’s wife after his death.
Pasted from http://www.bbc.com/news/10103783

4 Strange, Yet Effective Celebrity Car Endorsements
Mark Frost | Nov 05, 2014 | 0 comments
http://www.automoblog.net/2014/11/05/strange-celebrity-car-endorsements/


Economists Kerwin Charles, Erik Hurst, and Nikolai Roussanov have taken up this rather sensitive question in a recent unpublished study, “Conspicuous Consumption and Race.” Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 1986-2002, they find that blacks and Hispanics indeed spend more than whites with comparable incomes on what the authors classify as “visible goods” (clothes, cars, and jewelry). A lot more, in fact—up to an additional 30 percent. The authors provide evidence, however, that this is not because of some inherent weakness on the part of blacks and Hispanics. The disparity, they suggest, is related to the way that all people—black, Hispanic, and white—strive for social status within their respective communities.
Pasted from http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2008/01/cos_and_effect.html>

Big Cosby Endorsements
Criticism[edit]
In 1973, The Village Voice writer Terry Guerin suggested the actor was past his prime. Among the reasons, “making spokesman commercials for such established heels as White Owl cigars and Pan American airlines. He has evolved into a kind of self-parodying sap, the kind of flagrant, perpetual parader Sammy Davis has always been.”[62]
“The Noble Cos,” a 1986 satirical editorial by Edward Sorel forThe Nation, was written as if told by Cosby himself. It echoed the suggestions of other authors that Cosby has become out-of-touch with lower-class African Americans.[63] Cosby said “So this buddy says, ‘I didn’t mind your commercials for Jello, Del Monte, Ford cars … Ideal Toys, or Coca-Cola, although Coke does do business in South Africa … But, Bill, why do commercials for those crooks at E. F. Hutton?’ My buddy didn’t understand my commercials improve race relations. Y’see, by showing that a black man can be just as money-hungry as a white man … I’m proving that all men are brothers.”[64]
To magazine Black Enterprise in 1981, Cosby has defended his numerous endorsements thusly:
“ In this business, many of us are well paid but we are not all that wealthy. You may read ‘X-number of dollar goes to so and so,’ but remember, everybody takes a cut–the lawyer, the agent, the publicist. If a company comes along and says ‘We’d like you to talk about how much you enjoy wearing this warm-up suit,’ and the money is right, I’m going to do it. Jell-O was a dessert in my house when I was a kid. My mom served Del Monte fruit cocktail when I was growing up. They want to pay me to say I eat these products, well, I eat them. I came out of a lower economic area, and this is money. This is a business … show business. A great deal of our careers depends on keeping ourselves in the public eye. I think performers should take advantage of commercial offers if they’re satisfied with the product.[3]
Pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby_in_advertising

Bill Cosby had a vile temper, punched out comic Tommy Smothers and was a hard-partying philanderer caught in a love child scandal that almost cost him his marriage, reveals new book

By CAROLINE HOWE FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 11:48 EST, 16 September 2014 | UPDATED: 13:30 EST, 16 September 2014
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2757889/Bill-Cosby-vile-temper-punched-comic-Tommy-Smothers-hard-partying-philanderer-caught-love-child-scandal-cost-marriage-reveals-new-book.html#ixzz3KUi42mtm 


For Bill Cosby, No Escape From the Damage to His Legacy
Pasted from http://variety.com/2014/tv/columns/for-bill-cosby-no-escape-from-the-damage-to-his-legacy-1201360402/

Then after a day of researching on the web I found this little piece that came out November 20, 2014. I had not heard of it and was quite surprised to find it as it related to what was told to me in my dream.

Kirk Cameron.

Another rape allegation has surfaced against famed comedian and actor, Bill Cosby. This time it is from another familiar 80s face: Kirk Cameron.
Pasted from http://www.celebtricity.com/kirk-cameron-files-sex-abuse-charges-on-bill-cosby/

I Spy
“After being appointed Knights Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Scimitar by an Arab king, Alexander Scott jokes to Kelly Robinson, “Well, you just wait till the boys at the Mystic Knights of the Sea lodge hall get a hold of this one.” While not a direct Masonic reference, it illustrates the prevalence of unconscious Masonic fictionalization. Episode: Sparrowhawk. First aired: October 26, 1966. Robert Culp, Bill Cosby. Three F Productions, Sheldon Lenard.”
Pasted from https://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/fiction/obscurities.html

2011 Cosby quote “I don’t feel the need to wear a suit”

http://cbswzlx2.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cosby-2-8-11.mp3

But Nana Had Her Dreams!

“Ten years ago there was no social media to speak of, which meant the allegations failed to make their way into the public consciousness. That had all changed by this September, when journalist Mark Whitaker published a biography, Cosby: His Life and Times, which controversially omitted the allegations of sexual assault against its subject. The following month, comedian Hannibal Buress described Cosby as a “rapist” during a stand-up set in Philadelphia; the clip went viral. Inspired by the response to Buress’s routine, Bowman penned her account for the Washington Post, and the story ballooned.”

Pasted from http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/bill-cosby-rape-allegations-explained/2461714/

“Some notable living memberz are Hank Aaron (once Major League Baseball Homerun king); Tom Bradley (tv personality); Dennis Archor (once mayor of Detroit); Elvin Big ‘E’ Hayes (NBA Basketball great); Bill Cosby; Jesse Jackson; Earl Graves, Jr. (Black Enterprise); Douglass Wilder (Governor of Virginia); Lynn Swann (NFL Hall-of-Famer), Kweisi Mfume (once head of NAACP), and David Dinkins (once mayor of New York City), to name a few.”

Pasted from http://daghettotymz.com/rkyvz/articles/bouleseries/boule1-3roster/boule1/boulept1.html

Hollywood’s sexual predator problem explodes

By Michelle Malkin  •  May 7, 2014 01:28 AM
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2014
“The same industry that sanctimoniously convenes anti-bullying summits with the Obama White House and falsely accuses conservatives of waging a “war on women” has allowed countless children to be stalked, groomed, beaten, molested and raped on casting couches, in movie trailers, and at drug- and alcohol-drenched parties by Tinseltown predators. The alleged child rape scandal exposed by Egan does not exist in a vacuum:
–Last year, child actor Corey Feldman sounded the alarm on rampant pedophilia in a brave, scathing memoir. He recounted how his best friend and co-star, the late Corey Haim, was sodomized by an older male on the set of their hit film “Lucas.” The boys, fed cocaine by a string of predators, attended parties with Hollywood talent manager and child actors’ repMarty Weiss. Now a registered sex offender, Weiss pleaded no contest in 2012 to lewd acts on a child under the age of 14. The victim, another young child actor, alleged Weiss sexually assaulted him between 30 and 40 times from the age of 11.”
If all of these sickos had been Catholic priests, college fraternity members or charter school teachers, we wouldn’t have heard the end of it. Perhaps the social justice awareness-raisers in the Hollywood left should take a break from pointing fingers at everyone else — and put a stop to the monsters in their own midst.
Pasted from  http://michellemalkin.com/2014/05/07/hollywoods-sexual-predator-problem-explodes/

TY BURR | COMMENTARY
Why did we ignore Bill Cosby allegations for so long?
Pasted from http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2014/11/20/bill-cosby-conundrum-why-did-look-away-long/2YTejl6WfvRkiIIzP5ZMyN/story.html


CHARACTER FLAW
11.20.14
Newsflash: Bill Cosby Is Not Cliff Huxtable
TV Land has canceled The Cosby Show reruns. Is this a mature expression of understandable judgment, or a bid to erase history while conflating fiction and reality?
Pasted from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/20/newsflash-bill-cosby-is-not-cliff-huxtable.html


BILL COSBY, CELEBRITY FASHION, COSBY, MAURY LEVY, MAURY Z. LEVY,PLAYBOY, PLAYBOY INTERVIEW, THE COSBY SHOW
Bill Cosby: The Playboy Fashion Guide Interview
In Playboy magazine and the Playboy Guides (1979-1989) on September 2, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Pasted from http://mauryzlevy.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/bill-cosby-the-playboy-fashion-guide-interview/

I’m Starting to Wonder if There’s Anyone Bill Cosby  Hasn’t Rapedhttp://essaalroc.com/2014/11/18/im-starting-to-wonder-if-theres-anyone-bill-cosby-hasnt-raped/

Bill Cosby To Rape Victim Andrea Constand: “Tell Your Mom You Orgasmed So She Thinks It’s Consensual” (Video) {F}

Bill Cosby’s fall from grace has been swift and hard. He was once one of the most beloved and respected figures in Hollywood.
Now all he may be remembered for is drugging and raping countless women. Does he deserve worldwide shame? Without question he does. Can his image be rehabilitated? That’s highly unlikely.
A 2005 deposition given in a civil suit filed by alleged victim Andrea Constand, paints a picture of a man who is depraved and appears to have no regrets for his actions.

Andrea Constand

Following their encounter, Cosby reportedly told the young woman to “to tell her mom she had an orgasm during sex, to make her mother believe the sex was consensual,” TMZ reports.
The former Jello pudding spokesperson also admitted to giving Constand drugs.
The case was eventually settled out of court in 2006.

A deposition from a 2005 lawsuit has Bill Cosby acknowledging using his fame and drugs to prey upon women

• The deposition is from a lawsuit filed by Andrea Constand, who accused the comedian of drugging and molesting her 

• Cosby, 78, denied sexually assaulting the victim, whom he also calls a liar, and other women

• He also discussed paying off victims through his agent so ‘Mrs Cosby’ wouldn’t find out

• This deposition could change the stance of several people who have supported Cosby throughout the sexual assault allegations 

Never-before-seen excerpts of a Bill Cosby deposition from 2005 show the formerly beloved entertainer explaining in his own words how he used his fame, fortune and drugs to prey on vulnerable women – and paid them off to keep his wife from finding out.

Interviewed in a Philadelphia hotel over four days by a lawyer acting on behalf of then-30-year-old Temple University employee Andrea Constand, Cosby admitted to lying to his doctor about a bad back to get powerful sedatives which he then gave to women before sex.

Read more: http://www.caribbeanfevercommunity.com/profiles/blogs/forget-these-women-bill-cosby-s-tv-wife-phylicia-rashad-breaks-si?id=2663233%3ABlogPost%3A1680836&page=1#comments

NB COMMENTARY:


I have been doing some ground work on this thing with Bill Cosby. I am not sure about what you have said here, except to say, that maybe you just don’t understand much about PTSD. There is no umbrella knee jerk reaction that all who suffer this can be given. So the idea that they would have come forward years ago discounts the way that they are dealing with their trauma or not dealing with it.
While people aged 18 or 19 may be legally considered adults and able to fight in wars they are not physically and mentally mature. In fact, some folks take a long time to become mentally mature for that matter.In the Hollyweird  business there are all types of scenarios and we all know that wine, women, sex and drugs are a big part of it. Do I have to prove that? Is it hearsay? Yes. By whom? The Hollyweirdos themselves through various venues.
At 18-19 years old, you have been given bucket loads of what it’s like to live high of the hog in Hollyweird. The stars parade before you and you want to be a part of the glamorous life they all seem to enjoy. But they are not privy to the backroom deals, compromises and adulterating things they will have to do to make it to the”Big Top.” The adults around them do, they have heard the stories and seen the movies of the real life downfall of these trend setters. These adults warn their children in many cases. At 18 or 19 who listens to adults? Especially if you have determined that adults have no clue about what is happening in the real world outside of their bedrooms.
How many of these young people, 40 years ago are taught about what “rape” really is? How many of them come from broken homes? How many of them come from poverty and are looking for a way out? How many of them are already accustomed to the life style and know their lines? How many of them think that “giving” your body in exchange for a chance is part of what comes with getting ahead? And finally, how many of them realized they were raped after the statute of limitations? Seriously……. how many women right now, realize they are being raped by their husbands/boyfriends when they say “NO” and are ignored?
All I am saying is that, in certain instances, particularly Hollyweird , it’s not considered rape, it’s consider to be what you do, what is done to you, and what you see happening around you.
In essence, many, many people do this in Hollyweird  and even more people turn their heads the other way, or simply participate. It’s the way of the world in Hollyweird .
Sometimes, the stars are bribed and intimidated into uncompromising situations and they too are victims of the greed and vileness of their handlers. Everybody in Hollyweird  is handled by someone. It’s not right, but it is a weird normalcy. Who in Hollyweird is complaining about the sex trafficking and prostitution and drug rings that go on? Few if any. And when they do, well they become profoundly targeted. I say profoundly because they are all targeted. It’s show business and it’s about the money, fame and notoriety, the glamour and the luxuries, the high life and the status, the conspicuous consumption.
Again, how many of them equated it to rape at that young age? How many of them were raped before they got to Hollyweird? How many of them realized  very late that their rage, insecurities, depressions, suicidal tendencies, anxieties, paranoia, etc. had anything to do with their history of being abused by an authority figure, someone they trusted?
I am a Mental Health professional, and in my experience, I have seen it happen over and over again, where the memory of the traumatic situation is erased, skewed or purposely forgotten, and they ain’t even trying to get into Hollyweird. There is no other pressure around them but family and friends. Now couple that with family, friends and other celebrities who will come down hard on you for even insinuating such a thing about Bill Cosby.
He wasn’t “America’s dad”during the initial alleged incidences, but if you know the pathology, many times, once it is not reported or if reported denied, then it becomes an addiction when it first started off as just sick.
And, HELLO!!! on your Cosby wasn’t powerful back then, you can’t be serious? He was outlandishly powerful with many firsts in this country for any black man during those times. And he had money!!!! Imagine, here we had a culture that would lynch a black man in a heart beat for looking at a white woman, let alone raping her, and he was accepted into the White Aristocracy!! Yep, he was powerful alright, more than you could ever know, unless you are a Black man/woman in America. Black people didn’t just come of age without a struggle or slippery dancing to get into the door. Believe me, he was big in the eyes of many people across racial lines and to have him mentor you or help you get ahead was a great honor! Why? Because he was powerful.
So, in conclusion, I appreciate your perspective on this in that it inspired me to write down mine. Whether the media tries and convicts him or not, is irrelevant. Whether he says yeah, I did it or not is also irrelevant. What is most needed is the rape culture being put on blast, especially in how it is played out in Hollyweird, religious institutions, sports and politics. Powerful people are taking advantage of women, men and children across the board. If nothing else, that needs to be addressed. This episode will encourage more disclosure and education on how folks are supposed to act. Whether it changes the complexion of the lifestyle of the rich and famous remains to be seen, but it’s a step in the right direction and an important hurdle towards the healing. In these situations, all parties are victims!

 After all is said and done, this photo and the comment below sounds quite eery.

Activist Post: We Are the Enemy: Is This the Lesson of Ferguson?

We Are the Enemy: Is This the Lesson of Ferguson?

John W. Whitehead
Activist Post






If you dress police officers up as soldiers and you put them in military vehicles and you give them military weapons, they adopt a warrior mentality. We fight wars against enemies, and the enemies are the people who live in our cities — particularly in communities of color. — Thomas Nolan, criminology professor and former police officer.

Ferguson matters because it provides us with a foretaste of what is to come. It is the shot across the bow, so to speak, a warning that this is how we will all be treated if we do not tread cautiously in challenging the police state, and it won’t matter whether we’re black or white, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat. In the eyes of the corporate state, we are all the enemy.

This is the lesson of Ferguson.

Remember that in the wake of the shooting, Ferguson police officers clad in body armor, their faces covered with masks, equipped with assault rifles and snipers and riding armored vehicles, showed up in force to deal with protesters. Describing that show of force by police in Ferguson, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, stated, “This was a military force, and they were facing down an enemy.”

Yes, we are the enemy. As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, since those first towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

There was a moment of hope after Ferguson that perhaps things might change. Perhaps the balance would be restored between the citizenry and their supposed guardians, the police. Perhaps our elected officials would take our side for a change and oppose the militarization of the police. Perhaps warfare would take a backseat to more pressing national concerns.

That hope was short-lived.

It wasn’t long before the media moved on to other, more titillating stories. The disappearance of a University of Virginia college student and the search for her alleged abductor, the weeks-long man-hunt for an accused cop killer, the Republican electoral upset, a Rolling Stone expose on gang rapes at fraternity parties, Obama’s immigration amnesty plan, and the rape charges against Bill Cosby are just a few of the stories that have dominated the news cycle since the Ferguson standoff between police and protesters.

It wasn’t long before the American public, easily acclimated to news of government wrongdoing (case in point: the national yawn over the NSA’s ongoing domestic surveillance), ceased to be shocked, outraged or alarmed by reports of police shootings. In fact, the issue was nowhere to be found in this year’s run-up to Election Day, which was largely devoid of any pressing matters of national concern.

And with nary a hiccup, the police state marched steadily forth. In fact, aided and abetted by the citizenry’s short attention span, its easily distracted nature, and its desensitization to anything that occupies the news cycle for too long, it has been business as usual in terms of police shootings, the amassing of military weapons, and the government’s sanctioning of police misconduct. Most recently, Ohio police shot and killed a 12-year-old boy who was seen waving a toy gun at a playground.

Rubbing salt in our wounds, in the wake of Ferguson, police agencies not only continued to ramp up their military arsenals but have used them whenever possible. In fact, in anticipation of the grand jury’s ruling, St. Louis police actually purchased more equipment for its officers, including “civil disobedience equipment.”

Just a few weeks after the Ferguson showdown, law enforcement agencies took part in an $11 million manhunt in Pennsylvania for alleged cop killer Eric Frein. Without batting an eye, the news media switched from outraged “shock” over the military arsenal employed by police in Ferguson to respectful “awe” of the 48-day operation that cost taxpayers $1.4 million per week in order to carry out a round-the-clock dragnet search of an area with a 5-mile-radius.

The Frein operation brought together 1,000 officers from local, state and federal law enforcement, as well as SWAT teams and cutting edge military equipment (high-powered rifles, body armor, infrared sensors, armored trucks, helicopters and unmanned, silent surveillance blimps) — some of the very same weapons and tactics employed in Ferguson and, a year earlier, in Boston in the wake of the marathon bombing.

The manhunt was a well-timed, perfectly choreographed exercise in why Americans should welcome the police state: for our safety, of course, and to save the lives of police officers.

Opposed to any attempt to demilitarize America’s police forces, the Dept. of Homeland Security has been chanting this safety mantra in testimony before Congress: Remember 9/11. Remember Boston. Remember how unsafe the world was before police were equipped with automatic weapons, heavily armored trucks, night-vision goggles, and aircraft donated by the DHS.

Contrary to DHS rhetoric, however, militarized police — twitchy over perceived dangers, hyped up on their authority, and protected by their agencies, the legislatures and the courts — have actually made communities less safe at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low and lumberjacks, fishermen, airline pilots, roofers, construction workers, trash collectors, electricians and truck drivers all have a higher risk of on-the-job fatalities than police officers.

Moreover, as Senator Tom Coburn points out, the militarization of America’s police forces has actually “created some problems that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.” Among those problems: a rise in the use of SWAT team raids for routine law enforcement activities (averaging 80,000 a year), a rise in the use and abuse of asset forfeiture laws by police agencies, a profit-driven incentive to criminalize lawful activities and treat Americans as suspects, and a transformation of the nation’s citizenry into suspects.

Ferguson provided us with an opportunity to engage in a much-needed national dialogue over how police are trained, what authority they are given, what weaponry they are provided, and how they treat those whom they are entrusted with protecting.

Caught up in our personal politics, prejudices and class warfare, we have failed to answer that call. In so doing, we have played right into the hands of all those corporations who profit from turning America into a battlefield by selling the government mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and drones.

As long as we remain steeped in ignorance, there will be no reform.

As long as we remain divided by our irrational fear of each other, there will be no overhaul in the nation’s law enforcement system or institution of an oversight process whereby communities can ensure that local police departments are acting in accordance with their wishes and values.

And as long as we remain distracted by misguided loyalties to military operatives who are paid to play the part of the government’s henchmen, there will be no saving us when the events of Ferguson unfold in our own backyards.

When all is said and done, it doesn’t matter whose “side” you’re on as far as what transpired in Ferguson, whether you believe that Michael Brown was a victim or that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting first and asking questions later.

What matters is that we not allow politics and deep-rooted prejudices of any sort to divert our efforts to restore some level of safety, sanity and constitutional balance to the role that police officers play in our communities. If we fail to do so, we will have done a disservice to ourselves and every man, woman and child in this country who have become casualties of the American police state.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute where this article first appeared. He is the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State and The Change Manifesto.

Camille Cosby, Another Victim of Controversy?

To be honest, I was trying to figure out what it was about this whole situation that made me feel a deep sadness withing my self. How can this be? Cosby? A sexual predator? The man who made me laugh throughout my childhood and the same man whom I shared that laughter with my own children? This man?

Well of course we know what happens behind closed doors in Hollywood, it’s no big secret, it ain’t even a conspiracy theory. It’s fact, pure and simple. Men prey on women, women prey on men, and let’s not forget what happens to the under aged youth who end up in this mess. But something about this made me feel a deep sadness and this article, see below, helped me get it. It’s Camille.

Dr. Camille Cosby
She is such a beautiful person. Why do I say that? How do I know? Because my group, the “Voices Of Africa” Choral and Percussion Ensemble performed at their daughter’s Erinn’s wedding at their beautiful Elkins Park Estate. That’s how I know. It was Camille who made it a beautiful experience for all of us. She was gracious, loving and kind and through it all, as it was shortly after their son, Ennis, death.

VOA @ Errin Cosby’s Wedding, circa 1998

She was radiant and absolutely breathtaking in her appearance and demeanor and despite all the legal papers we had to sign swearing us to secrecy that we would not breath a word of it, or tell even our closest friends that we were there, she made sure we were featured in the middle section of the Jet Magazine. That was Camille. And after that she supported us with donations so that we could go to Ghana, West Africa! How do I know that? She hugged me and I felt her.

But I must agree with this writer, quiet as it’s kept, while it may be the end of the road for Cosby’s career, it’s the end of the road for the life of denial that she lived for 50 years. How does one so beautiful, so poised and so committed to her family and husband live a lie for 50 years and survive it?

Too often in cased of child molestation, sexual assault and sexual indiscretions perpetrated by the men, and even women in this society, the person who is most hurt and most traumatized by it is the wife, spouse or partner of the accused. Particularly, if they are the public face of the perpetrator. How do they look themselves in the mirror, day after day, month after month, year after year counting on to 50 years???

What has to be the deepest incessant turmoil that goes on in the family for a woman, spouse or partner that decides to stay despite it all? Can that destructive pain and denial have a face other than sheer goulish nightmarish horror? Where do they put their true feelings, their true face, their true rage?

Who can have any semblance of trust ever again for a spouse or partner who completely humiliates you before the eyes of the entire world? A secret that is guarded by them that is not a secret at all, but a blatant slap in the face and a devastating assault on all that you may describe as integrity?

Coming up from under this shroud may be the best thing to happen for Camille or maybe the worst. Today we have Social Media. It can take a tiny grain of sand and transform it into a meteor hurling through space to strike and destroy the entire earth! In a heartbeat, even the most pristine of public images can be tarnish beyond repair. With Social Media, even Camille can no longer be in denial of what has been happening in and to her life for 50years.

Was there anything that she could gain from being by the side of this man, Cosby? Why did she stay after she learned of the first discretion and affront to familial trust? She was young, inexperienced, a mother of five and eventhough she eventually acquired her own stature by going to college and getting a PhD, she discarded, only on some levels, Cosby Shadow, and carried her own. In fact, she adorned her own in the glamor of her own beauty, poise and grace. She hid behind her own wall.

Camille is and was no slouch. She had gained her own place in the sun and it was quite clear while we were in their presence who ran the show around there. She conducted every thing. She managed everything. She made everything happen. But, she did not step outside of the boundaries to decry, how painfully insensitive and dibilitating Cosby’s behavior was. We felt it, there was a war going on. The undercurrent of protestations and rankling was real and quite present. I felt it. Other events insued afterwards that confirmed my intuition about this war that I will not go into, but I could see past the plastic smiles. Having been married myself, I could sense that something was a bit amiss in the Cosby household.

No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it’s still gonna be a pig. And now, the clearing, the cleansing and the erasing has begun. My heart breaks for Camille. She did that for 50 years and unlike nowadays where we have these celebs with open marriages or consecutive marriages, we are looking at a woman who came up in a time where marriage was a sacred union, till death do you part, even if the marriage itself is a death sentence.

A beautiful flower, plucked from the garden and placed in a plastic sheeting to last, for all to see. My Beloved Camille, may you find your true voice and your true love, YOU!

Camille Cosby, another victim of controversy? (Opinion) – CNN.com

Editor’s note: Blue Telusma is a Washington-based writer for theGrio.com, an online venue devoted to perspectives that affect and reflect the African-American community. Follow @theGrio on Twitter or like it on Facebook. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. Follow her on Twitter.(CNN) — Camille Olivia Hanks was studying at the University of Maryland when she met Bill Cosby in the early ’60s. He was doing stand-up comedy in Washington when the two were set up on a blind
date. They fell in love and she left school to support his burgeoning career in entertainment.

By 1964, the two were married and they would go on to have five children together. In 1997, their son Ennis (who inspired the character Theo Huxtable) was murdered, and a few years later Dr. Camille Cosby did a one-on-one with Oprah explaining how she’d eventually been able to find joy after mourning the loss of a child.

Throughout that interview it was so clear that you were looking at the real-life Clair Huxtable that even Oprah seemed a bit star-struck by her poise and grace.

During her 2000 appearance on Oprah, Camille revealed:
“I became keenly aware of myself in my mid-thirties. I went through a transition. I decided to go back to school, because I had dropped out of college to marry Bill when I was 19. I had five children, and I decided to go back. I didn’t feel fulfilled educationally. I dropped out of school at the end of my sophomore year. So I went back, and when I did, my self-esteem grew. I got my master’s, then decided to get my doctoral degree. Education helped me to come out of myself.”

When asked why she wasn’t content to just settle for being the wife of a famous entertainer she continued:
“I don’t know exactly what it was, except that for me, integrity is important. For me friendships are important, family is important, and it is a blessing if we can have monetary benefits. That’s wonderful, and I love it. But I have to have the security of people who really care about me, and me about them. I want to be surrounded by people who have integrity. And, of course, my name is Camille, not Bill.”

That was a beautiful answer. But a lot has changed since then. These days, Camille Cosby is standing alongside her husband during what may turn out to be the worst month of his long career.

For the last few weeks, the beloved TV dad who used to sell us Jell-O pudding pops has been at the center of an ever-growing scandal. He has canceled several appearances, Netflix has postponed the launch of his stand-up special, NBC nixed plans for a new comedy show, and this week Janice Dickinson became the latest woman to make allegations against him; telling E News that he raped her in 1982 after she’d done a stint in rehab.

Cosby is arguably the most successful African-American performer in television history, but this isn’t the first time he has found himself under scrutiny for extramarital affairs.

In his biography, “Cosby: His Life and Times,”  Mark Whitaker makes mention of the legendary comedian’s “roving eye” and even tells an anecdote about how he finally cut back on his womanizing by breaking up with his long-time girlfriend. Now it seems those softball admissions about having a weakness for beautiful women may have been shrouding something much more sinister than an affair.

From thegrio.com: Dear Bill Cosby, heed your own advice and be accountable In the last decade alone, more than a dozen women have accused Cosby of rape or sexual assault. No formal charges have ever been successfully filed, so even with all the media speculation, these claims are technically only allegations. But there is one person in this melee whose anguish is virtually indisputable: his wife, Camille.

So how does a woman like that end up spending 50 years of her life beside a man who is now alleged to be a serial rapist? One can only imagine the embarrassment she must be experiencing through all this. But her dilemma is a lot more common than you may think.

In a world that asks you to be a mother, a wife, a businesswoman and an alluring sexual being, women grapple with finding the balance between respecting themselves and prioritizing their relationships. While many say they would leave a spouse who cheats, experts estimate that approximately 50-75% of couples rocked by an affair stay together.

There are many reasons why some women choose to stay: the fear of being alone, financial dependency, belief that they can alter the behavior of their mate, professional status of their partner, deep emotional investment and family obligations.

It is hard enough to come back from infidelity in private, let alone when you have the added stress of being a public figure. Both Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards have weathered similar storms with men they devoted their lives to. And one could argue that it is a lose/lose situation for any wife
who finds herself in that position: If you stay, people judge you for not standing up for yourself, and if you leave there is endless speculation about why your marriage failed.

But this isn’t just a simple case of being cheated on. There are some very serious stories coming to the forefront from those who describe Cosby as a sexual predator, who for decades allegedly drugged and violated young women who looked up to him as a mentor.

During one of Cosby’s old routines, he actually jokes about drugging young women.

Coincidentally the set is from his album “It’s True! It’s True!” which was released in 1969, the same year Joan Tarshis claims he drugged and raped her.

We can only speculate on what Camille’s reasons are for staying in her marriage, when she found out about each rape claim, or whether she believes in her husband’s innocence. She’s been stoic and tight-lipped through all this, exuding the unflappable composure that she is known for.

During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, many believed that had Hillary Clinton left her husband, his political career would have collapsed. Hillary Clinton may have well understood that her marriage wasn’t just a union between a man and a woman but a much larger political machine. Perhaps Camille Cosby, who is equally responsible for her husband’s career, feels a similar responsibility to maintaining the legacy and philanthropic institution she and her husband have built together.

Few knew that in the original “Cosby Show” pitch, Bill had planned to have Heathcliff be a limousine driver who was married to a Latina handywoman. Programming executives weren’t too thrilled with that idea, but it was Camille who convinced her husband to go in another direction.

According to another excerpt in Whitaker’s book:
“The producers felt strongly that both [parents on the show] should be college graduates. As Cosby had proved in his stand-up act, the war of wits between parents and children was even funnier if the parents thought of themselves as highly intelligent people.

“Finally, shortly before 1 in the morning, Cosby said the words that made Carsey think that she might be getting someplace: ‘I think my wife would agree with you.’

” ‘You will not be a chauffeur!’ Camille said when he briefed her on the meeting. ‘Why not?’

Cosby asked. ‘Because I’m not going to be a carpenter!’ Camille said.”

That snippet gives a rare glimpse into the type of bond these two have, and also illustrates that Mrs. Cosby has not just been her husband’s muse, but also a trusted adviser who keeps his career on track, behind the scenes.

Sunday when NPR host Scott Simon asked Cosby about the resurfaced rape charges, he was met with a wall of silence. Later on, Simon admitted to CNN that during that awkward moment in the interview, the one thing he couldn’t do was look at Camille.

“I did not look at Mrs. Cosby, and I don’t mind saying I might’ve been a little uncomfortable doing that anyway,” Simon said.

That’s what many find so unsettling about all this: the deafening silence of it all. The same man who has spent years waxing poetic about every social issue under the sun has now fallen completely mute on us, with his equally reticent wife by his side.

The Cosbys’ union remains seemingly stable through half a century of life’s ups and downs, and as someone who respects the institution of marriage I find that commendable. But when does the adage of “stand by your man” go too far?
I’m rooting for black love as much as the next person — but not like this.

From thegrio.com: Dr. Huxtable no more, Cosby lost that persona after 13 rape allegations

Ebola, the African Union and Bioeconomic Warfare

Ebola, the African Union and Bioeconomic Warfare » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


Health Questions and the Challenges for Africa  Weekend Edition October 10-12, 2014

Ebola, the African Union and Bioeconomic Warfare

by HORACE G. CAMPBELL
As the Ebola outbreak rages, and there are projections of more than 1.4 million persons infected in the next few months, the African Union and the regional bloc ECOWAS have taken a back seat as the international media uses this virus to stigmatize Africa and Africans. Pious statements have been made by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the World Bank warns that could Ebola could have “catastrophic” economic costs on the region of Western Africa. This same World Bank has not yet accepted any reasonability for its role in promoting neo-liberal politics that degraded the health care facilities of Africa. This degradation will be called in this article economic warfare. Bioeconomic warfare is the combination of economic warfare and biological warfare. In the midst of this tragedy, Britain, France and the United States use the deaths of thousands to remilitarize West Africa. Characteristically, this militaristic intervention with the division of the three societies between USA (Liberia) France (Guinea) and the United Kingdom (Sierra Leone) ensures that the media attention is placed on the military deployments of the western states and not on measures for public education. 

The kind of international response that will be needed for countering bioeconomic warfare requires a different kind of public education and mobilization than what the AUand ECOWAS have so far called for. Liberia, Sierra Leona and Guinea are the societies that are at the epicenter of the outbreak of the Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) that some writers have said has spun out of control. [1] These three territories are members of the Economic Community for West Africa (ECOWAS). ECOWAS is one of the five regional organizations that make up the AU. Six months after it was clear that this epidemic was widespread, in August 2014, there was a meeting of ECOWAS held in Ghana to address the outbreak. At this meeting, it was stressed that the best approach to curbing the spread of Ebola and bringing the disease under control remained effective quarantine, isolation and public education. There is no indication that either the AU or ECOWAS is working at their maximum effort to bring this disease under control. In the same month of August, the Director General of the World Health Organization stated that, the outbreak is “the largest and most severe and most complex that we’ve ever seen in the nearly 40-year history of this disease.” 

One of the priorities of public education is for citizens to have a fuller understanding of the source or sources of Ebola and the kind of responses that can bring this pandemic under control. Citizens need to understand everywhere that Ebola is not particularly contagious. There should be the clarification that there is no cure for Ebola. All of the therapies and vaccines being used so far are experimental. The simple requirements of control are robust public health infrastructures, clean water facilities with sanitation and a clean environment. In short, Ebola can only be contained with robust health facilities. The very same institutions and organizations that have been at the forefront of bioeconomic warfare in Africa cannot lead the mobilization against Ebola. This mobilization requires nonmilitary, civilian medical leadership. Ebola presents one more challenge for a new kind of leadership in Africa that can value the lives of the producers. 

EBOLA: WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

From the varying press reports this current strain of Ebola broke out in Guinea at the end of 2013 and was brought to international attention by the time it had spread across West Africa by March 2013. The symptoms of Ebola haemorrhagic fever begin 4 to 16 days after infection. Persons develop fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, and loss of appetite. As the disease progresses, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sore throat and chest pain can occur. The blood clots and the patient may bleed from injection sites as well as into the gastrointestinal tract, skin and internal organs. The mortality rate is usually very high. This virus is not spread through the air via coughs or sneezes like the common cold. It is spread through frequent contact with bodily fluids and can be spread only by someone who is showing the symptoms. 

It should be stated from the outset that Ebola is not one of those illnesses known to the majority of healers and doctors in Africa. Scientific journals of all continents attest to the profound ignorance about this virus. Fifteen years ago the internationally respected International Journal of Infectious Diseases stated that “Filoviridae is the only known virus family about which we have such profound ignorance.” [2] What accounts for this profound ignorance on the part of the top researchers in the West?

Inside Africa, the most experienced, the traditional healers have no experience in dealing with this illness. The reports in the mainstream media place the first outbreak of Ebola in Africa in 1976. This virus was named for a river in then Zaire, where Ebola was allegedly first detected. Then, according to information released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta,” Ebola is a member of a family of RNA viruses known as filoviruses. When magnified several thousand times by electron microscope, these viruses have the appearance of long filaments of threads. Although the CDC places the first outbreak of Ebola in Zaire in 1976, the leading scientific journals such the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine placed the first outbreak in Marburg, Germany.

One of the most profound requirements of public education is to diminish the racialization of Ebola to clarify that the first recognized outbreak took place not in Africa, but in Marburg Germany, hence the name given to Ebola as Marburg Virus. In 1967 an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany.

Thirty-one people became ill, initially laboratory workers followed by several medical personnel and family members who had cared for them. Seven deaths were reported.

THE EVOLUTION OF EBOLA

According to the CDC, the first Outbreak of Ebola was in 1976 in Zaire. In their website, the CDC stated the first Outbreak of Ebola“occurred in Yambuku and surrounding area. Disease was spread by close personal contact and by use of contaminated needles and syringes in hospitals/clinics. This outbreak was the first recognition of the disease”. [3] Why is it necessary for the CDC to place the evolution of disease in Africa? [4] The website of the CDC differs from the Journal of Infectious Diseases that stated, “Biomedical science first encountered the virus family Filoviridae when Marburg virus appeared in 1967.”

The reporting on the number of deaths in the Zaire outbreak differs according to differing sources. One fact is indisputable. This was the largest number of deaths at that time in 1976. There were 550 cases and 340 deaths. In the third outbreak in 1979, in Sudan, there were 34 cases and 22 fatalities.

RESTON-EBOLA

The fourth outbreak of Ebola was in the United States. The strain of Ebola Reston is so called because of an outbreak which occurred in Reston, Virginia, in late 1989. Very few following the present outbreak of Ebola know that there was an outbreak of Ebola in the Washington Suburb of Reston, less than 20 miles from the United States Capitol. There were two other small incidents of the Reston outbreak after 1989.

THE KITWIT OUTBREAK

Six years after the first Reston outbreak there was a major outbreak of Ebola at Kitwit, again in Zaire. There were over 200 fatalities. Up to then, the Kitwit Ebola outbreak had been the deadliest. The outbreaks were usually controlled when appropriate medical supplies and equipment were made available and quarantine procedures used.

Since those days there have been periodic outbreaks in Uganda, Angola, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and other parts of Africa, but nothing compared to the scale and depth of the present pandemic in West Africa.

In the most popular book on this virus published over 20 years ago by Richard Preston, The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus [5] readers are exposed to the twenty years of  research by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRID) on a family of viruses that are lethal. This book came out before the Kitwit outbreak but we know from press reports that the USAMRID, the CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other international research organizations used the Kitwit outbreak to study this virus. The book concentrated on the three ways which the scientific community attempts to deal with a virus: vaccines, drugs and bio containment. This book by Preston came out in a moment when the tabloid press was making great claims about the airborne possibilities of Ebola and was whipping up anti-African hysteria.

It was in the same period when Robert Kaplan had written his celebrated article, “The Coming Anarchy. “ It was this sensationalism that set the tone about the so-called failed and fragile states in Africa. Robert Kaplan wrote extensively on how scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease were rapidly destroying the social fabric of our African societies. [6] Kaplan’s work was part of the psychological warfare against Africa and Africans at the moment when the peoples of world were celebrating the victory over apartheid.

USAMRID -THE US MILITARY AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE RESEARCH- ONE ARM OF BIOECONOMIC WARFARE

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is supposed to be the frontline research institution for the USA in its bioshield preparations, which is the preparedness of the US government to fight against biological threats. President Richard Nixon had ended the offensive biological warfare program of the USA with his “Statement on Chemical and Biological Defense Policies and Programs” on November 25, 1969 in a speech from Fort Detrick. The statement was supposed to put an end, unconditionally, to all U.S. offensive biological weapons programs. The United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction was signed in 1972. Even after the signing of this international convention a number of countries, including the USA, continued research on designer viruses.


Despite the UN convention, the explosion of scientific research on genetically modified organisms gave a boost to the research being carried out by both military and civilian agencies that were chasing profits from developing dual use pathogens. Biological agents that were being experimented with as bioweapons accelerated and the one bioweapon from this school of dual use pathogens that has come to light has been the experimentation on anthrax.

Characteristically, the use of anthrax on civilians by the military was in the case of the racist Rhodesian military who unleashed anthrax spores in feed cakes for animals killing over 80 Africans in what was then Rhodesia. Years later Timothy Stamps, the Minister of Health in Zimbabwe, drew a connection between the anthrax outbreak in Rhodesia, the Ebola outbreaks and the experimentation that had been carried out under South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program.

This South African apartheid CBW program has now received international notoriety through Project Coast where the apartheid regime was experimenting with biological agents that could be specifically targeted at Africans. The government of the United States has gone to great lengths to distance itself from the experimentation of Project Coast even though at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC of South Africa), Dr. Wouter Basson testified how he was warmly embraced by US intelligence elements. The full implication of the work of Wouter Basson and Daan Goosen is still to come to light. [7]

The attractiveness of the weaponization of biological agents increased in the era of genetically modified organisms. Because Africa was the space of the most diverse genetic materials, scientists and bio anthropologists from the West traversed the rural countryside in Africa looking for plants with unique characteristics. In the era of massive research in the life sciences, many universities became involved in dual use research.

DUAL USE RESEARCH


Dual use research (DURC) is life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misused to pose a significant threat with broad consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, or national security. In short, dual use research was research that could be used to assist in advancing human health and security or at the same time be used for biological warfare.

We have learnt from research carried out by UNESCO that “military interest, in harnessing genetic engineering and DNA recombinant technology for updating and devising effective lethal bioweapons is spurred on by the easy availability of funding, even in times of economic regression, for contractual research leading to the development of bioweapons.” [8] This is the research environment within which to grasp the present outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.


On the day before President Barack Obama spoke to the world on the Ebola pandemic, the White House on Wednesday September 24, 2014 issued new guidelines intended to strengthen the oversight of federally funded biology research that could inadvertently produce bioweapons. According to the report in the New York Times carried on Thursday September 25, “The new policy shifts the burden of finding and disclosing the dangerous aspects of research from the funding agency — usually the National Institutes of Health — to the scientists who receive the grants and the universities or other institutions where they work.” On the same day, the National Public Radio (NPR) was more specific that the ruling related to dual use pathogens and research being carried in government funded laboratories. This report came three years after the controversies about bird flu research that was being carried out for bioterror purposes. 

In 2011, there had been a fierce debate in the media about the use of biological research for terror, in short bioterrorism. Then as NPR reported, “Scientists and security specialists are in the midst of a fierce debate over recent experiments on a strain of bird flu virus that made it more contagious weapons. In September of 2011 at a scientific conference in Malta, one scientist made a stunning announcement at a flu conference “he’d done a lab experiment that resulted in bird flu virus becoming highly contagious between ferrets — the animal model used to study human flu infection. It seemed that just five mutations did the trick.” This report on NPR in November 2011 did not reappear but in the same broadcast one noted bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Biosecurity at a national university stated that,

“It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it.”

So far no expert or whistle-blower has come forward to speak openly about experimentation with viral haemorrhagic fevers, which are now lumped under the name of Ebola. Today as a vital component of prevention and public education there is the need for scientists and researchers to speak out about the laboratories in the West or elsewhere that have been experimenting with dual use pathogens. It is also necessary for the international community to know whether any of these research teams or university personnel associated with dual use pathogens has been active in the countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria before the present outbreak of Ebola. At the minimum, ECOWAS and the AU should pressure the UN Ebola Fund to focus not only on fund raising but to also make Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to fully develop the measures to properly organize against outbreaks of the current type.

From the reports coming in on the numbers of people who have been left to die without attention or a decent burial, the figures on the number of deaths in West Africa from WHO have been a clear undercount to minimize the extent of the devastation by Ebola. In contrast to the numbers being broadcast by WHO, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported on Tuesday September 23 that “Ebola cases could increase to between 550,000 and 1.4 million in four months, based on several factors including how many people are infected by Ebola carriers. 

The report questioned whether the official number of deaths recorded by WHO, 2,800 out of at least 5,800 Ebola cases, has been underreported. CDC has said it is likely that 2.5 times as many cases, or nearly 20,000, have occurred so far.” [9] On the same Tuesday that the CDC issued its dire warning of the prospect of 1.4 million persons dying, the New England Journal of Medicine also weighed in and stated that “if the disease isn’t adequately contained, it could become endemic among the populations in countries hardest hit by the outbreak — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. …. “Without drastic improvements in control measures,” researchers say, “the numbers and cases and deaths from [Ebola] are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in coming months.”
According to the WHO, “Extensive, immediate actions – such as those already started – can bring the epidemic to… a rapid decline in cases.” 

BEYOND THE MILITARIZATION OF THE RESPONSE TO EBOLA

The extensive and immediate action referred to by WHO concerns the deployment of military forces by the United States, Britain and France to the countries most affected. The US has deployed over 4,000 military personnel to West Africa to assist in the fight against Ebola. The fight against Ebola cannot be a military effort. It must be an effort that is based on seeking to bring back the health and safety of the peoples whose communities have been destroyed with hundreds of families losing loved ones. The US plans to quickly increase its presence in Liberia, where military personnel are deploying to help the people halt the advance of the worst Ebola epidemic on record but we also need to know what the private security contractors have been doing in Liberia over the past ten years. President Obama has stated that the military is required to set up the medical and transportation infrastructure needed to deploy health workers. Why could this infrastructure work not be carried out by civilian agencies?

From India, Sreeram Chaulia noted correctly in an article entitled ‘Foreign Pulse: Viral Politics’, that “As the Ebola epidemic ravages West Africa, a familiar act with troublesome connotations is playing out. The international response to the conjoined public health crises in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is following imperial patterns of tutelage and patronage, wherein each of these three countries has been exclusively taken over by its respective former master from America and Europe through targeted humanitarian aid…….An erstwhile colony established by American citizens freed from slavery, Liberia is back to being literally a ward of the US, which faces no competition from any other Western donor there. 

Washington is deploying up to 4,000 military personnel to set up hospitals, medical laboratories and treatment centres on a war footing. This mission, codenamed “Operation United Assistance”, is being overseen by the controversial US Africa Command (AFRICOM).”

In a context where the international news media is dominated by the western news agencies, ECOWAS has also called for military mobilization to respond to Ebola. In the opinion of this author, ECOWAS and the AU have dropped the ball because the militarization of the international response will make it difficult for countries such as China, Cuba, India, South Korea and other societies to properly harmonize the medical response to this Ebola outbreak. The AU and ECOWAS need a new kind of medical diplomacy which is rooted in the valuation of black bodies. Chaulia noted that “if the US, UK and France were driven by humanitarian motives, why did they not contribute to the multilateral UN Ebola response fund that would have distributed the funds more equitably among the three worst-hit West African countries? Thus far, only India and Australia have made sizeable donations of $10 million each to the UN Ebola fund that is woefully undersubscribed.”

PROJECT 112


In North America, the Fox news organization and its affiliates have been at the forefront of the racialization of the present outbreak of Ebola. When the Liberian national was hospitalized and later succumbed to Ebola, the conservative media whipped up an unprecedented hysteria about the possibilities of an Ebola outbreak in the United States. (This patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, has since passed away). Within this hysteria, there are questions in the media whether this virus could go airborne. Some readers will remember that the possibility of the airborne transmission of Ebola was the theme of the film Outbreak that was produced by Hollywood. What has not been in the public domain is the fact that it was the US government that from 1962 to 1973 carried out a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project called Project 112.


This was specifically conducted so that those who were being experimented with did not know that they were guinea pigs. In 2000 when US television network CBS made known the existence of this biological warfare program, it was also revealed that apart from testing on individuals in the USA there were tests carried out in countries where “The US Department of Defense (DoD) conducted testing of agents in other countries that were considered too unethical to perform within the continental United States.”

PROJECT BIOSHIELD


We are yet to know which African societies were considered ripe for the testing of toxins by the US Department of Defense. After the anthrax scare in the USA in 2001 and the war against the people of Iraq in 2003, the US Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act in 2004 calling for U.S. $5 billion for purchasing vaccines that would be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack. There has been a ten-year program to put money into the same forces that were experimenting with dual use pathogens. In the words of the Congress, Project Bioshield was a ten-year program to acquire medical countermeasures to biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear agents for civilian use. The US government has been working on countermeasures against biological warfare. Is it by accident that the top three threats that the Bioshield program is meant to defend the citizens of the US from are Anthrax, Ebola and Bird Flu?

AFRICA AND BIOTERRORISM

Africans have faced bioterrorism from the time of colonialism and apartheid and this is well documented in the book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Author Harriet Washington went into great details about the bioterrorism against black people. The Tuskegee experiment is now the most well-known case of using black bodies as guinea pigs for medical experimentation. The book on Hela Cells (Henrietta Lacks) is another devastating account of the use of black bodies. [11]

Harriet Washington placed chemical and biological warfare under the larger category of “bioterrorism,” which “employs chemical or biological agents such as microbes and poisons in the service of terrorism…weapons often consist of disease-causing organisms, usually microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, or derivatives from humans, animals or plants” [12] Another important aspect of biological warfare that Harriet Washington brings forth is the fact that it can be both direct and indirect when used against populations. In other words, chemical agents can be used to kill people directly by physically harming them with something such as nerve gas, or biological warfare can be used to pollute the environment in which someone lives in order to cut off their source of food (plants, livestock), water, or both.

Cuba is one society outside of Africa that has been forced to develop the medical and biosafety capabilities after the outbreak of Dengue fever in 1977. We now know from the new book, Back Channel to Cuba, that Henry Kissinger had organized a plan to ‘smash’ Cuba. [13] This was because Kissinger was angry about the Cuban intervention in Angola in 1975-1976 to beat back the racist South African incursion. Kissinger who had overseen the authorship of the National Security Memorandum 39 of 1969 which predicted that whites were destined to stay and rule in Southern Africa was upset that a small island committed to an alternative mode of economic organization could ruin his plans for Africa. It was reported in the recent New York Times article that in the discussions between Kissinger (then Secretary of State) and President Gerald Ford, Kissinger used “language about doing harm to Cuba that is pretty quintessentially aggressive.” [14]

The Cubans have exposed that the Dengue fever which broke out in Cuba in 1977 was linked to biological warfare by the US government. This has been corroborated by press reports from the United States. At that time the US government blocked efforts by the Cuban government to purchase fumigators and chemicals to control the Dengue spread. As a small island, Cuba has been able to develop quarantine measures but more importantly develop the scientific capacity to research the root of outbreaks such as Dengue.

AU AND ECOWAS MUST TAKE THE LEAD TO RESPOND TO THIS LETHAL VIRUS

In August the President of the US called the first US-Africa Summit in Washington. Although the Ebola pandemic was already killing more persons than the four episodes discussed in the website of the CDC, White House was not focused on the devastation that was being wrought on West Africa. In Africa, Ebola has exposed the porousness of the so-called borders. The AU has so far failed to take the lead in mobilizing to fight this pandemic. Does the African Union have in place any kind of bioshield preparation? At the time of the outbreak of the HIV AIDS pandemic it was significant that western pharmaceuticals placed their profits before human lives. It took the massive organizing of a grassroots movement such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) of South Africa to pressure the pharmaceuticals to allow for the production of generic drugs to treat AIDS patients in Africa. This TAC campaign influenced the cooperation between India, Brazil and South Africa which later merged into BRICS.

A similar grassroots mobilization is now needed in West Africa to break the slow and lackadaisical response of ECOWAS and the AU. ECOWAS has been able in the past to intervene in Liberia and Sierra Leone to bring peace. Collectively, ECOWAS and the AU possess the technical and medical capabilities to be more vigorous in response to Ebola. There is the mistaken perception abroad that Africa does not have the medical personnel to fight this epidemic. However, the ability to mobilize the resources in Africa for a more robust response depends on political will. Nigeria alone has over 40,000 doctors with thousands having experience in infectious diseases. 

In the economic warfare against Africa the medical profession of Africa was assaulted and there was a massive brain drain of African medical personnel to Europe and North America. African governments have been very clear about their objections to the wholesale migration of their physicians to rich countries. Despite these objections there are more than 10,000 international medical graduates from Africa in the USA and Western Europe. The US received more than 7,000 doctors from three countries: Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Progressive Africans will have to mobilize for a change of course so that the AU and the United Nations can demilitarize the response to Ebola.

Already it has been demonstrated in Liberia that the pandemic can be contained. Nigeria and Senegal have been able to contain the virus. The western media has drawn attention the fact that Firestone Company in Liberia was able to contain and control the virus on its rubber plantation. [15] This author is no fan of Firestone. At the recent Empowered Africa Dialogue in Washington during August, workers at Firestone spoke of the low wage and exploitative working conditions on the rubber plantation. Thus this company cannot be held up as an example, but the important point is that Ebola can be controlled and there is no need for the pandemic to spin out of control. The Firestone story also demonstrates that the military is not needed to organize the medical and transport infrastructure to contain the escalation of the deaths.

This author has been critical of saviours from outside but this Ebola pandemic provides an opportunity for the true humanitarian doctors to separate themselves from the militarized response to the Ebola outbreak. The African Union must take the lead so that those medical responders can find a non-military infrastructure to work with. There is the need for full-scale mobilization in all of the countries where health workers, traditional doctors, scientists, civilian agencies and the military will be crucial in the fight against bio-economic warfare. Global health experts have declared the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach.

Although the media has racialized the Ebola pandemic, there is an urgent need for the international community to come together for this coordinated global approach. The Ebola virus presented a real challenge to Africa and the deployment of scientists, community health workers, volunteers and health brigades to combat this virus is one of the most important tasks of reconstruction in Africa.


Horace G. Campbell, a veteran
Pan Africanist is a Professor of African American Studies and Political
Science at Syracuse University. He is the author of Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya, Monthly Review Press, 2013. 


Notes.


[1] Evan Horowitz, “How the Ebola Virus Spun Out of Control,” Boston Globe, October 8, 2014. http://tinyurl.com/n7azj76


[2] C. J. Peters, J. W. LeDuc, “An Introduction to Ebola: The Virus
and the Disease,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 179,
Supplement 1. Ebola: The Virus and the Disease (Feb., 1999), pp. ix-xvi


[3] Outbreaks Chronology: Ebola Virus Disease, CDC, Known Cases and Outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease, in Chronological Order: http://tinyurl.com/nrzolre


[4] See Centers for Disease Control, “Known Cases and Outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease, in Chronological Order:” http://tinyurl.com/nrzolre


[5] Richard Preston, The HotZone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus,” Anchor books, 1995.


[6] Robert Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,” The Atlantic, February, 1994 http://tinyurl.com/lyx89cd


[7] Helen E. Pruitt, Stephen F. Burgess: South Africa’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2005


[8] Edgar J. DaSilva,” Biological warfare, bioterrorism, biodefence
and the biological and toxin weapons convention,” Electronic Journal of
Biotechnology,Volume 2, No 3, December 1999. See also Wright, S. (1985).
“The military and the new biology. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
41:10-16.


[9] “Estimating the Future Number of Cases in the Ebola Epidemic—Liberia and Sierra Leone, 2014–2015,” http://tinyurl.com/puh8tev


[10] Sreeram Chaulia, “Viral Politics, Foreign Pulse, October 8, 2014.” http://tinyurl.com/nrarcl2


[11] Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Broadway Books, New York 2011


[12] Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of
Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the
Present, Anchor Books, New York 2008 page 365


[13] William M. Leo Grande and Peter Kornbluh, Back Channel to Cuba,
University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2014.


[14] Frances Robles, “Kissinger Drew Up Plans to Attack Cuba, Records Show,” New York Times, September 30, 2014 http://tinyurl.com/pzurfx7


[15] National Public Radio, “Firestone Did What Governments Have Not: Stopped Ebola In Its Tracks.” http://tinyurl.com/m8vqcov

Ebo-Lie: Man Living In Ghana Confirms Ebola Is A Hoax!

Ebo-Lie: Man Living In Ghana Confirms Ebola Is A Hoax!

By Steven Bancarz • October 16, 2014

A statement made by a man in Ghana named Nana Kwame has rocked the internet in the last few days. The following information needs to reach people. We need to see Ebola for what it really is. It’s time that the world wakes up to the agenda behind all of this hysteria. Here is what this man has to say about what is happening in his home country:
“People in the Western World need to know what’s happening here in West Africa. THEY ARE LYING!!! “Ebola” as a virus does NOT Exist and is NOT “Spread”. The Red Cross has brought a disease to 4 specific countries for 4 specific reasons and it is only contracted by those who receive treatments and injections from the Red Cross. That is why Liberians and Nigerians have begun kicking the Red Cross out of their countries and reporting in the news the truth. Now bear with me:
REASONS:Most people jump to “depopulation” which is no doubt always on the mind of the West when it comes to Africa. But I assure you Africa can NEVER be depopulated by killing 160 people a day when thousands are born per day. So the real reasons are much more tangible.

Reason 1:

This vaccine implemented sickness being “called” Ebola was introduced into West Africa for the end goal of getting troops on the ground in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. If you remember America was just trying to get into Nigeria for “Boko Haram”. BULLSHIT. But that fell apart when Nigerians started telling the truth. There ARE NO GIRLS MISSING. Global support fell through the floor, and a new reason was needed to get troops into Nigeria and steal the new oil reserves they have discovered.

Reason 2:

Sierra Leone is the World’s Largest Supplier of Diamonds. For the past 4 months they have been on strike, refusing to provide diamonds due to horrible working conditions and slave pay. The West will not pay a fair wage for the resources because the idea is to keep these people surviving on rice bags and foreign aid so that they remain a source of cheap slave labor forever. A reason was also needed to get troops on the ground in Sierra Leone to force an end to the diamond miners strikes. This is not the first time this has been done. When miners refuse to work troops are sent in and even if they have to kill and replace them all, the only desire is to get diamonds back flowing out of the country.
Of course to launch multiple campaigns to invade these countries separately would be way too fishy. But something like “Ebola” allows access to an entire area simultaneously…

Reason 3:

In addition to stealing Nigerian oil, and forcing Sierra Leone back to mining, troops have also been sent in to FORCE vaccinations (Deadly “Ebola” Poison) onto those Africans who are not foolish enough to take them willingly.

3000 troops are being sent in to make sure that this “poison” continues to spread, because again it is only spread through vaccination. As more and more news articles are released as they have been in Liberia, informing the populous of the US lies and manipulation, more and more Africans are refusing to visit the Red Cross. Troops will force these vaccinations upon the people to ensure the visible appearance of an Ebola pandemic. In addition to this they will protect the Red Cross from the Liberians and Nigerians who have been rightfully ejecting them from their countries.

Reason 4:

Last but not least, the APPEARANCE of this Ebola “pandemic” (should Americans not catch on) will be used to scare the countless millions into taking an “Ebola vaccine” which in reality is the pandemic. Already they have started with stories of how it has been brought to the U.S. and has appeared in Dallas, how white doctors were cured but black infected are not being allowed to be treated, etc.

ALL that will do is make blacks STRIVE to get the vaccine, because it appears that the “cure” is being held back from blacks. They will run out in droves to get it and then there will be serious problems. With all we have seen revealed about vaccines this year you would think we learned our lesson. All I can do is hope so, Because they rely on our ignorance to complete their agendas.

Ask yourself: If Ebola really was spread from person to person, instead of controlled spread through vaccination – then WHY would the CDC and the US Government continue to allow flights in and out of these countries with absolutely no regulation, Or At All? We have got to start thinking and sharing information globally because they do not give the true perspective of the people who live here in West Africa. They are lying for their own benefit and there aren’t enough voices out there with a platform to help share our reality. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, paralyzed and disabled by these and other “new” vaccines all over the world and we are finally becoming aware of it. Now what will we do with all this information?”

The original piece written by him can be found here.

A Liberian-born faculty member of a US university wrote an article on Liberian newspaper, the Daily Observer, claiming that Ebola is the result of bioterrorism experiments conducted by the US.Dr. Cyril Broderick claimed, among other things, that “sites around Africa, and in west Africa, have over the years been set up for testing emerging diseases, especially Ebola.

“WHO and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments,” he continued.

“Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone” Claims a report from International Business Times.

It also happens that the Ebola breakout coincides with UN vaccine campaigns. Pharmaceutical and biotech industries will have profited handsomely from the ebola crisis when biodefense-research generals, high civil servants and UN bureaucrats sheepishly sign multimillion-euro R&D contracts. It’s quite the coincidence that the earliest breakout in Guinea happened along side three major vaccine campaigns conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN children’s agency UNICEF. At least two of the vaccination programs were implemented by Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders), while some of those vaccines were produced by Sanofi Pasteur, a French pharmaceutical whose major shareholder is the Rothschild Group. Of course, the Rothschilds run nearly all of the worlds central banks and have a family network of around 500 trillion dollars. They are the ones pulling strings on this planet, and they will only profit from this outbreak.


Now, I am personally no expert on Ebola, but history has a funny way of repeating itself. Here is my prediction. Expect a false flag attack in the US as a way to further contain/control the population and kill them off in the process. The are going to announce an outbreak (which may actually the release of a chemical bio-weapon, and not Ebola) and then they will start administering the Ebola vaccine to the population. They may even try to make it mandatory. DON’T TAKE THE VACCINE. This is how Ebola will spread, and this is how they will justify occupying other foreign countries and establishing military bases there. This is part of their globalist agenda.

Don’t think this is a conspiracy yet? Check this out:





Oops. Guess they forgot the cameras were rolling. Now here is where it gets weird. Did you know that the CDC has a patent on the Ebola virus? That’s right. The US government owns it. As reported on NaturalNews, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control owns a patent on a particular strain of Ebolaknown as “EboBun.” It’s patent No. is CA2741523A1 and it was awarded in 2010. You can view it here.


Patent applicants are clearly described on the patent as including:The Government Of The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary, Department Of Health & Human Services, Center For Disease Control.

The patent summary says, “The invention provides the isolated human Ebola (hEbola) viruses denoted as Bundibugyo (EboBun) deposited with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”; Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America) on November 26, 2007 and accorded an accession number 200706291.”

Why the patent? Patenting Ebola seems as odd as trying to patent cancer or diabetes. Why would a government organization claim to have “invented” this infectious disease and then claim a monopoly over its exploitation for commercial use?

Does the CDC hope to collect a royalty on Ebola vaccines? Is it looking to “invent” more variants and patent those too?

They think we’re stupid or something. 911 and Sandy Hook weren’t enough I guess. “Let’s patent a virus and test it out in Africa so we can occupy their land, secure oil supplies, and create hysteria back home so they all think they need a vaccination containing a live virus.” says the global elitists. The Ebola story has all of the ingredients of a classic false flag operation. If Ebola is real, why the “Ebola is real campaign”? What’s up with that anyways?







Please spread this information. Enough with the propaganda fed to us by mainstream news. We have testimony coming directly from Ghana telling us that the outbreak is being created by Red Cross vaccinations. This is a massive lie and manipulative effort by the US government for ulterior motives.
Sources: Listed within the article
About the author: My name is Steven Bancarz, and I am the creator of Spirit Science and Metaphysics. Thanks for reading this article! Please share it with your friends and family. The world needs to wake up. If you wish to subscribe to my newsletter, you can do so HERE

The Africa they Never Show you!

This video (see below)prompted several thoughts as I watched it. In fact, it actually created a kind of paradoxical thinking bordering on conflict of interest. Having been to Africa myself, and having many African friends my thoughts today, in view of the recent Aggression against Africa, West Africa, in particularly due to the Ebola virus that has been around since 1970 and whom some feel has been weaponized…. my thoughts spiraled into this blog post.

Personally, I think it’s nice to have industry but I also am concerned about what industrialization means to the common people. Does it mean that everyone can reap the benefits? Does it mean that they have taken on the Western Mantle of Capitalism so despite the outward appearance of opulence, there is an insidious gap between the haves and the have-nots.

I also wonder how much devastation had to happen to the pristine lands to create the metropolis.

I wonder is there a middle ground. A way forward to a so called advanced civilization, a cooperation that respects the primitive (first) approach to nature and other human beings and the industrialization of indigenous lands. Can those tall buildings mean less pollution, less aggression, less poverty, and a more holistic lifestyle for all.

Are indigenous people displaced from their home so that huge highways, factories and buildings can be placed there? Are animals rounded up and placed on reserves and zoos so that the land they lived on can be transformed into territory that can be used by big corporations? Or more horrifically, are/were they slaughtered?

Did/does the leadership of these countries consider the original natural habitat of their country and the effect on the planet when they became part of the industrial revolution?

Did/does the Universities, and lower schools teach the youth about their culture, spirituality and ancient history or is their culture and history replace, distorted or demonized with the invasion of Western education, spirituality and religion?

Looking at the current tumbling of the Western economy, will the African economy collapse as well as it has become economically entrenched in the Western style of buying and selling, i.e. Capitalism?

 These and many other questions come to mind when I view this video.

 There are 53-55 countries that are part of the African continent. Each of these countries have their own way of life, traditional cultures and spirituality. Before colonization, they were thriving within their own borders. The imposition of arbitrary borders, religion, political and educational structures and languages of the colonizers have changed the face of Africa that I am sure would be quite unrecognizable to those who lived there 500 to 600 years ago.

The Western model of civilization has dwarfed the ancient model that these people held. It has caused a schism in beliefs, systems and mental structures among the African people. They are divided in their ability to gather their people under One Banner of Nationhood. Even this idea is antipathetic to the Original African Mindset. The concept of Global reach while admirable, in the Ancient African’s way of thinking it did not mean the destruction of entire civilizations and creating homogenous civilizations in its wake. The unfortunate wars of conquest, and empire building that took place among the Africans still allowed for the intermingling, dissemination and cooperation among different peoples even though there may have been regional Chiefs. This is particularly notable by the fact that Africans tend to be multi-lingual speaking several dialects fluently to communicate among their home tribes and peoples as well as being able to fluently communicate with others in surrounding areas.

The advent of the Western Model of dominance where everyone speaks the same language, has one religions and is politically yoked to the western idea of democracy, is foreign to the African/Indigenous mind. I can only imagine the amount of cultural shock it must/has caused the African who’s family values, appreciation for nature and others in the community is replaced with the competitive nature of the Western World View.

The Western World view is that if every one wears the same garment, they all look alike, while the African World view is that if every one wears the same garment, they create and individuation by the fact that each person brings their own individual essence to the garment. So the difference is what brings uniformity, not uniformity is suppressed by difference. The African World view sees a Higher Power that expresses itself through every blade of grass as a different expression of itself. To the Western Mind, “In My Image.” means an exact replica. There for a One World Government means that everything has to be the same, homogenous, exact replicas. While the African engages in the Creativity of the various streams of expression. No two things need sound alike or be exactly alike.

Looking at the African Industrial structures in this video, you see the modeling and patterning and replication of the concepts of duplication. Over and over, in this model, things are fabricated to “BE” the same. This leads me to see, these industrialized metropolises as replicas of the Western World View. It is as if industrializing Africa has created the Western “Franchise” results. Everything looks the same. Buildings, factories, highways are all build the same so when compared to the Western world they can be said to be comparable. And this is true around the world. Countries that move toward industrialization typically look like Western countries. Meanwhile, the rainforest and pristine lands that preceded the Western Ideology of what “civilization” meant is wiped away from the mental landscape.

Having been born in the Western World, I have my own inner conflicts about this. I appreciate the comforts of running water, sanitation, a flushing toilet, refrigeration and heating. However, I also appreciate the so-called back-to-nature aspect of Indigenous living, before industrialization. I am also aware of how addictive these creature comforts can be when compared to having to use an outhouse to relieve oneself.

I guess my biggest question is, how can industrialization take place without destroying the planet in its wake? Is there a way to make life a little easier to bear without destroying the very planet that gives us this life? Are there other options to building tall structures and creating metropolis that displace humans, animals and nature? Is there a middle ground where man and nature can live harmoniously together without destroying each other?

These and many other questions come to mind when I view this video.

The Africa theyNever Show you! (L’autre Afrique)

Preschool Enterovirus Victim Died in His Sleep – ABC News

Preschool Enterovirus Victim Died in His Sleep – ABC News

The New Jersey preschooler who died of the respiratory illness enterovirus 68 went to sleep and never woke up, health officials say.

The death of 4-year-old Eli Waller is the first to be blamed on the virus that has swept the country, but health officials say he went to bed with none of its symptoms, which include cold-like symptoms but in some cases can involve wheezing and difficulty breathing.”I think Eli’s case is the exception to the other cases around the country,” said Jeffrey Plunkett, the Hamilton, New Jersey, health officer. “He had no signs of any illness that night, and his passing was sudden and shocking.”Entovirus 68 Now Suspected in More Than 40 StatesTemporary Paralysis and Everything You Need to Know About Enterovirus 68Eli, of Hamilton, New Jersey, was the youngest of three triplets, born “smaller and lighter than his sisters,” but he was never one to let that stand in his way, his father Andy Waller said in a letter released Sunday evening. His siblings are “perfectly healthy,” Plunkett said, but one of Eli’s classmates was being tested for possible infection this morning.”Eli was not the type to give up, and even though things never really came easily to him, he would just plug away, day after day, practicing sounds, or movements, or skills, until he would eventually get them,” his father said.”He did this entirely in an effort to make his Mom and Dad proud, and we can unequivocally say that we were, and will continue to be, so very proud of our little Eli,” he said.He compared his son to “a shy little puppy who wants only to make people proud and happy, maybe tripping a bit over his own paws, but truly full of unconditional love.”Andy Waller said the family was establishing The First Day of School Foundation, to provide support for students involved in Special Education.”Like so many kids his age, Eli was both nervous and excited about starting school, and it is our sincere hope that this Foundation can work to help kids in a way that will make Eli proud of us all, in the same way that we were all so proud of him,” he said.Continue: Preschool Enterovirus Victim Died in His Sleep – ABC News

Sharing a very informative comment on this article.

Sharing a very informative comment posted under this report by questioningyou

“Many here are confusing the issues. We are researching the explosion of EV-d68 and what can only be classified as an uncharacteristic, potentially deadly strain. We are focusing on the distribution patterns first and foremost. Ancient citations about EV-d68 are not applicable in this case at this point. The message I hope to convey is that Americans should be diligent. They should know what’s happening in their communities and schools and take basic protective measures to minimize exposure. But I am also now compelled to discuss, somewhat, the applicable science, mainly because of the misleading information being spread on the internet by others, some of whom seem to have personal or even professional agendas.

First and foremost, the world, including the Philippines in 2009 (often mentioned in many of these forums) has NEVER seen a widespread epidemic of EV-d68 like we are experiencing now in the United States. And the resulting high incidents of serious illness associated with this outbreak are unprecedented. I reiterate, unprecedented. I reiterate high incidents. Cause and effect: What is different about this strain and where did it originate? Can we establish a pattern of distribution by reverse-engineering the latest epicenters of EV-d68 backwards to the first and subsequent occurrences? Can we establish a common source? The answer to this question is yes. We can: Clearly and convincingly. I would prefer to focus on that issue alone, however, there are many who continue to cite historical information about EV’s and EV-d68, in spite of my opinion that it is premature to do so at this point, especially when prominent researchers, one being Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who calls the pattern of infection “unusual.” I worked in one of Dr. Fauci’s labs myself thirty years

ago in the early days of HIV and have enormous respect for his opinion.

EV-d68 refers specifically to a virus, known as Enterovirus species D, serotype 68; more commonly referred to as EV68. It should not be confused with EVD (Ebola).

Currently EV68 has been documented in 43 states plus Washington, D.C. It is my

prediction that it will continue to spread rapidly. Again, this type of widespread outbreak is uncharacteristic of EV68. Never before in our history has EV68 spread so quickly to so many states or affected so many people, primarily children. I am a scientist. This is not a political statement about immigration policies, or an attempt to blame innocent children for bringing EV68 with them from Central America. It’s more likely most of them contracted it here, at the border reception stations where they were subjected to appalling living conditions while they were being processed. However, it is

documented that there were several cases of TB which did arrive with the children, along with other health issues. Their subsequent possible connections to this particularly virulent strain of EV68 cannot be discounted. Yet. Nevertheless, From a public health perspective I will say that it is appalling and unacceptable that any of these children were displaced nationwide without adequate health screening first. And to all of the detractors I say that distribution data we are developing clearly shows correlation between known epicenters of outbreaks and the placement of these children throughout the country. These data are now emerging as irrefutable patterns, which I intend to submit to peer review scrutiny within the next 24 – 48 hours. It’s critical that we understand how this happened and not let ourselves get sidelined by

opposing political views and opinions of those who are clearly trying to distance this crisis from US Policy, the way the border crisis has been managed, or potential adverse effect on immigration reform. I could care less about any of these issues within the context of researching and understanding this epidemic.

EV68 is not a new disease. The key difference now is the widespread explosion in the general population. Increased occurrence leads to greater probability of mutation.

That’s a real concern. In spite of studying the virus for more than fifty years, historical data are not entirely relevant in this case. This particular strain is different and potentially deadly. We can’t predict the run of its course now because the spread of this strain is very unique. Normally most people experience few if any symptoms. But normally the virus exists in clusters where isolated exceptional cases don’t warrant public health intervention or cause a nationwide health crisis. The virus has been enigmatic, generally predictable, until now. Normal core standards do not apply to this

strain.

Enteroviruses are grouped in a larger family called the picornaviruses. Scientist have been slicing and dicing and classifying EVs for more than fifty years. There are currently twelve species and more than a hundred serotypes. A well known EV is Enterovirus C, serotype poliovirus, or Polio. Enteroviruses closely resemble rhinoviruses, which mean they are generally respiratory viruses. Most patients experience common cold-like symptoms with little or no resulting complications. Outbreaks tend to have chartable peaks which can be tracked over years and

demonstrate higher rates of infections certain years and lower rates in other years. But never in the classified history of EV68 has any place in the world experienced the widespread, lightening fast explosion we are seeing now. Someone suggested in this forum that reviewing viral patterns would help the lesser informed understand that EV68 is no big deal. But the frequency of EV68 in 2014 cannot be determined until the final numbers are in, and we are in mid crisis. What we DO know is that EV68 has never spread so rapidly or been so widespread in the United States. Therefore historic charts and tables offer little scientific value towards understanding this very uncharacteristic strain. The viral pattern “peak” for 2014 will be astronomically higher than in any previous year.

Many enteroviruses have similar properties and produce similar infections and symptoms. But it’s important to remember that EV strains exist with different antigenicity, resulting in positive tests for EV-d68, but different symptom sets. A similar

EV-d68 crisis occurred in Philippines in 2008-2009. The virus underwent several mutations and spread rapidly but primarily in the Eastern Visayas region. It did not spread to the general population as a whole. Breathing difficulties were observed here also, but the outbreak, though large, was clustered and the outbreak was not considered problematic relative to other diseases, i.e. pneumonia. But that is not the case with the EV-d68 strain endemic in United States today. Clear data show the relationship between children with other respiratory problems and the severity of symptoms. Much work has to be done to study the antigenicity and receptor binding properties of the current strain of EV-d68 in comparison to the prototype strain of EV-d68. This is the main reason I have called attempts to explain and define, and even minimize the current crisis “premature” and “irresponsible”. We must study the pathogenesis to determine why so many children are the primary groups infected. The correlation of the age groups of the immigrant children on the border and the placement of those children in similar population age groups, where EV-d68 is now exploding cannot be ignored, even though it has been observed in this age group in the past. Particularly when emerging distribution patterns verify the placement of many of these children across the United States with outbreak epicenters. More alarming, we now understand that EV-d68 behaves like a flu virus insofar as it affects a cell by binding to the same target as a flu virus – α2-6 sialic acids. Evidence now suggests that EV-d68 may actually be capable of evading the immune system, breaking down certain chemical signals before the immune system can be alerted to the “attack.” Utilizing a protein called 3C protease, EV-d68 can break down immune signal in cells and prevent some of the normal immune system response. This enables the virus to continue to infect a person who may be unaware they are sick. But then they become seriously ill very quickly.

While I’m confident that Public Health officials are ready and able to deal with an increasing number of cases, there will still likely be numerous children who will become

seriously ill and some of them will succumb to their illnesses. My opinion is that would be a preventable tragedy for the majority of them. This particular outbreak appears to have had a lot of help distributing itself across the country. To the “historic data” flag wavers, I remind you that an EV-d68 outbreak of this magnitude has never occurred before, and; for more than half a century, EV-d68 has been infecting population clusters. So why is it so widespread now? Why is it causing numerous more serious symptoms, more severe infections?

Like the common cold or flu, infection is preventable by washing your hands with soap and water and also regularly disinfecting surfaces. If you do get sick, there is only a small chance it will get worse; most children and adults will have few symptoms. Finally, if there is a problem, such as respiratory distress, our hospitals are prepared to provide the appropriate care to help facilitate a full recovery.

Parents, pay close attention to what’s happening in the schools in your community. EV-d68 isn’t generally a big problem, but this year it’s different and we simply don’t know enough about this strain to dismiss the possibility that EV-d68 infection could

be catastrophic, particularly for children. If you suspect a problem in your child’s school, inquire. Keep your child home if necessary. As the weather cools the threat will subside. Then we can factually draw conclusions about the consequences of this highly uncharacteristic strain of EV-d68.”

Preschool Enterovirus Victim Died in His Sleep – ABC News

Preschool Enterovirus Victim Died in His Sleep – ABC News

The New Jersey preschooler who died of the respiratory illness enterovirus 68 went to sleep and never woke up, health officials say.

Sharing a very informative comment on this article.

Ebola, AIDS Manufactured by Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD? | The Liberian Observer

Ebola, AIDS Manufactured by Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD? | The Liberian Observer

Scientists allege deadly diseases such as Ebola and AIDS are bio weapons
being tested on Africans. Other reports have linked the Ebola virus
outbreak to an attempt to reduce Africa’s population. Liberia happens to
be the continents’s fastest growing population.

By: Dr. Cyril Broderick, Professor of Plant Pathology
Dear World Citizens:I have read a number of articles from your Internet outreach as well as articles from other sources about the casualties in Liberia and other West African countries about the human devastation caused by the Ebola virus. About a week ago, I read an article published in the Internet news summary publication of the Friends of Liberia that said that there was an agreement that the initiation of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was due to the contact of a two-year old child with bats that had flown in from the Congo. That report made me disconcerted with the reporting about Ebola, and it stimulated a response to the “Friends of Liberia,” saying that African people are not ignorant and gullible, as is being implicated. A response from Dr. Verlon Stone said that the article was not theirs, and that “Friends of Liberia” was simply providing a service. He then asked if he could publish my letter in their Internet forum. I gave my permission, but I have not seen it published. Because of the widespread loss of life, fear, physiological trauma, and despair among Liberians and other West African citizens, it is incumbent that I make a contribution to the resolution of this devastating situation, which may continue to recur, if it is not properly and adequately confronted. I will address the situation in five (5) points:
1.    EBOLA IS A GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM (GMO)
Horowitz (1998) was deliberate and unambiguous when he explained the threat of new diseases in his text, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola – Nature, Accident or Intentional. In his interview with Dr. Robert Strecker in Chapter 7, the discussion, in the early 1970s, made it obvious that the war was between countries that hosted the KGB and the CIA, and the ‘manufacture’ of ‘AIDS-Like Viruses’ was clearly directed at the other. In passing during the Interview, mention was made of Fort Detrick, “the Ebola Building,” and ‘a lot of problems with strange illnesses’ in “Frederick [Maryland].” By Chapter 12 in his text, he had confirmed the existence of an American Military-Medical-Industry that conducts biological weapons tests under the guise of administering vaccinations to control diseases and improve the health of “black Africans overseas.” The book is an excellent text, and all leaders plus anyone who has interest in science, health, people, and intrigue should study it. I am amazed that African leaders are making no acknowledgements or reference to these documents.
2.  EBOLA HAS A TERRIBLE HISTORY, AND TESTING HAS BEEN SECRETLY TAKING PLACE IN AFRICA
I am now reading The Hot Zone, a novel, by Richard Preston (copyrighted 1989 and 1994); it is heart-rending. The prolific and prominent writer, Steven King, is quoted as saying that the book is “One of the most horrifying things I have ever read. What a remarkable piece of work.” As a New York Times bestseller, The Hot Zone is presented as “A terrifying true story.” Terrifying, yes, because the pathological description of what was found in animals killed by the Ebola virus is what the virus has been doing to citizens of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in its most recent outbreak: Ebola virus destroys peoples’ internal organs and the body deteriorates rapidly after death. It softens and the tissues turn into jelly, even if it is refrigerated to keep it cold. Spontaneous liquefaction is what happens to the body of people killed by the Ebola virus! The author noted in Point 1, Dr. Horowitz, chides The Hot Zone for writing to be politically correct; I understand because his book makes every effort to be very factual. The 1976 Ebola incident in Zaire, during President Mobutu Sese Seko, was the introduction of the GMO Ebola to Africa.
3.    SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA
The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments. 
Obvious in this and other reports are, among others: 
(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland; 
(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever; 
(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC); 
(d) Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Medicins Sans Frontiers); 
(e) Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company;  
(f) The UK’s GlaxoSmithKline; and 
(g) the Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone. 
Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus. Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March. Disturbingly, many reports also conclude that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, a town at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The only relevant positive and ethical olive-branch seen in all of my reading is that Theguardian.com reported, “The US government funding of Ebola trials on healthy humans comes amid warnings by top scientists in Harvard and Yale that such virus experiments risk triggering a worldwide pandemic.” That threat still persists.
4.    THE NEED FOR LEGAL ACTION TO OBTAIN REDRESS FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DUE TO THE PERPETUATION OF INJUSTICE IN THE DEATH, INJURY AND TRAUMA IMPOSED ON LIBERIANS AND OTHER AFRICANS BY THE EBOLA AND OTHER DISEASE AGENTS. 
The U. S., Canada, France, and the U. K. are all implicated in the detestable and devilish deeds that these Ebola tests are. There is the need to pursue criminal and civil redress for damages, and African countries and people should secure legal representation to seek damages from these countries, some corporations, and the United Nations. Evidence seems abundant against Tulane University, and suits should start there. Yoichi Shimatsu’s article, The Ebola Breakout Coincided with UN Vaccine Campaigns, as published on August 18, 2014, in the Liberty Beacon.
5.   AFRICAN LEADERS AND AFRICAN COUNTRIES NEED TO TAKE THE LEAD IN DEFENDING BABIES, CHILDREN, AFRICAN WOMEN, AFRICAN MEN, AND THE ELDERLY. THESE CITIZENS DO NOT DESERVE TO BE USED AS GUINEA PIGS! 
Africa must not relegate the Continent to become the locality for disposal and the deposition of hazardous chemicals, dangerous drugs, and chemical or biological agents of emerging diseases. There is urgent need for affirmative action in protecting the less affluent of poorer countries, especially African citizens, whose countries are not as scientifically and industrially endowed as the United States and most Western countries, sources of most viral or bacterial GMOs that are strategically designed as biological weapons. It is most disturbing that the U. S. Government has been operating a viral hemorrhagic fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Sierra Leone. Are there others? Wherever they exist, it is time to terminate them. If any other sites exist, it is advisable to follow the delayed but essential step: Sierra Leone closed the US bioweapons lab and stopped Tulane University for further testing.
The world must be alarmed. All Africans, Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, Asians, and people from every conclave on Earth should be astonished. African people, notably citizens more particularly of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are victimized and are dying every day. Listen to the people who distrust the hospitals, who cannot shake hands, hug their relatives and friends. Innocent people are dying, and they need our help. The countries are poor and cannot afford the whole lot of personal protection equipment (PPE) that the situation requires. The threat is real, and it is larger than a few African countries. The challenge is global, and we request assistance from everywhere, including China, Japan, Australia, India, Germany, Italy, and even kind-hearted people in the U.S., France, the U.K., Russia, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and anywhere else whose desire is to help. The situation is bleaker than we on the outside can imagine, and we must provide assistance however we can. To ensure a future that has less of this kind of drama, it is important that we now demand that our leaders and governments be honest, transparent, fair, and productively engaged. They must answer to the people. Please stand up to stop Ebola testing and the spread of this dastardly disease.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Dr. Cyril E. Broderick, Sr.

War-Ebola-Environment-Health

It makes you wonder what the real agenda is when something so simple as “refraining from war” can really help impact the environment thus keeping people healthier and stronger so that their immune systems can do what it’s supposed to do.

If you look at the countries hit hardest by this disease, you can see they have had periods of war and devastation. Classically Liberia and the Congo both have been ravished. Imagine the psychological impact and then the health impact. The weakening of the immune system can be catalyzed by simple stressors, not to mention war, killings, rapes, bombing, destruction of infrastructure etc.

I would imagine that a comparable outcome is to be expected in the middle east.  In addition to the obvious results of war, the long term effects that manifest as extreme psychosis and paranoia, birth defects, destabilization of habitable areas, farms and livestock being destroyed, and the wounded in need of emergency hospital care. Not to mention the bodies (and body parts) that need to be discarded as they too can cause an outbreak of some virulent disease. Couple that with the amount of fossil fuels used to  deploy these munitions and the amount of toxic smoke emitted after these munitions have been deployed. Are we looking at other forms of respiratory diseases in folks on the ground, the ones who survive?

On and on we can state the many consequences of war and then we could equate the impact on the health of the world… and not even by being a scientist, or doctor, or nurse, just someone with a bit of common sense and introspection. Again, it really makes you wonder what the agenda is, for we are certain that our so-called leaders are not that ignorant. I am sure they have at some point in their lives experienced some type of illness and its impact on their health, if from nothing more than a simple allergy.

No, they are not ignorant, they are not stupid, and they are not unable to see. It is by choice that they turn their heads away from the fact that they have blood on their hands from the present catastrophic decisions they have made over the lives of others, thousands of miles away. Undoubtedly, they will play with their toys and weapons of mass destruction in the air, on the ground and through their military prowess, and refuse to connect the dots. The agenda is almost unspeakable. The outcome is quite certain. And they are doing the bidding of the Overlords who control them.

People will die in numbers and this will fulfill the contract that has been made.

We can speak on this for days and more days to come, but until an awakening happens in the hearts and minds of those who pass the legislation for endless war… we will remain in this cycle of destruction till all is lost. There will be no safe haven for anyone…. I believe that is one point that is sorely missed as the ink dries on another imposition of hegemony and imperial hubris.

What’s Behind the Ebola Crises and are U.S. Americans at Risk? http://ow.ly/CfIOq

 What’s Behind the Ebola Crises and are U.S. Americans at Risk?

In an interview with Telesur’s The Global African, Johns Hopkins Infectious Disease Program co-director Taha E. Taha discusses the roots of the Ebola crisis and what can be done about it. Courtesy of Telesur –   2 hours ago

Ex-US Officials Demanded a 30 Billion Dollar Bribe

Ex-US Officials Demanded a 30 Billion Dollar Bribe

Excerpt: “He (Wanta) was tasked by President Reagan and CIA Director William Colby to destabilize the Soviet Union through establishment, with funds from the US Treasury, of a worldwide currency trading scheme…….”

Being Robin Hood and taking down another government to support your own is a very interesting angle as it relates to extortion. The mission may have had some honest intentions but the idea of going after the Soviet Union in a “scheme” that would make trillions of dollars for the US is to me a question of ethics. Is it okay to do someone in so you can do for someone else? Well one thing that is for sure, there is no honesty among thieves. The issue of “my money” is a dubious one notwithstanding how you got “your money” in the first place.

For a long time a family member of mine was a pimp. He amassed great sums of money. When he offered it to me, I refused. I did not want money that was gotten under duress, torture, abuse or any other such thing.

Are the American people so shallow that they do not care, how they got the money, just that now they can use it? Are the American Christians and ethical social beings that shallow that they will look the other way, knowing that the money was ill-gotten in the first place, but yeah, we got millions of jobs out the deal? Are Americans so separated from the law of “what goes around comes around” that they think that since the “shake down of the Soviet Union” economy would not bite them in the ass as the Soviet Union and her descendants attempt to get themselves back on track knowing that it was the work of an American President that put them in the cross-hairs in the first place? 

To answer my own question, yes, in fact most people are that shallow. They do not realize that everything is energy and an exchange of energy, in this instance “ill-gotten money” will not bode well in the future. For instance, if one is willing to do something criminal to someone else, what makes them think they are “safe” from anyone else wanting to do something criminal to them? 

People who rally in support of criminalizing these two “culprits” who attempted to shake Mr. Wanta down are just as guilty as the party that Wanta engaged in to shake down the Soviet Union. There are no innocents in this kind of “economic tyranny” on all sides. The economies based on the Western Model is a ponzy scheme, no matter how you slice it. Issuing W9’s is no clearance for the fact that a substantial amount of interest was amassed for the Banksters and Crooks of the world to leverage their bets and hedge funds as this “fiat money” traveled around the globe.

Who in this day and time can even imagine having $trillions of dollars in their bank account?Who can imagine in this day and time having even billions? In fact, who really knows how billions become trillions when millions are homeless and even more millions of homes lie vacant?

Is there a viable resolve for one to come to in a corrupt economy ran by corrupt banksters backed by corrupt corporations and governments? 

Again, the fact that people feel that Mr. Wanta has been “mistreated, threatened or bribed” have their eyes veiled by the deception of the “currency trading scheme” and I would dare to mention the reason why. All for the love of money.

There are no victims in this case and there are no innocents either. IMHO

Ex-US Officials Demanded a 30 Billion Dollar Bribe

Excerpt from Veteran’s Today

Ex-US  Officials Demanded a 30 Billion Dollar Bribe

“Former Tenn. Gov. Don Sundquist and S. Dakota Sen. Sheldon Songstad may face not just the largest bribery charge in history but conspiracy to murder as well.”

… by  Gordon Duff,  VT Sr. Editor,    … with  New Eastern Outlook, Moscow

Lee Wanta, tough as nails, and still kicking

[ Editor’s note:  You just can’t make this stuff up. Two crooked aging politicians, who appear to be uber bagmen for Capitol Hill, don’t disconnect a voice mail message left for their shake down victim, and then the caller rings up his co-conspirator to discuss their next move, including killing their target if they don’t get paid.

But there is just one problem. The whole six-minute conversation goes into Lee Wanta’s voice mail, which the jury is going to enjoy immensely. Lee calls his rather extensive security team to ask what to do, and here we are… doing it.

This murder conspiracy case might also break the media blackout on the Wanta case, which has gone on since 2006, after the Treasury Dept. snatched his $4.5-million wire transfer from China into the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, only to be tranferred to Goldman Sachs the next day; and off to Europe it went as part of the $16 trillion of liquidity pumped into the banking system there during the meltdown.

I wish I could say this was an unusual case, but really, only the amounts involved are. These two yo-yos… there is an army of ex-office holders who would be doing exactly what these two thought was going to be their final wet dream.

If we were really to round up all of them doing this kind of stuff, there would be so many special elections going on that they would run out of press people to cover them. And no, I am not exaggerating… Jim W. Dean ]

A day after former Republican Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell and his wife were convicted of 20 counts of bribery and influence peddling, former Republican Tennessee governor Don Sundquist and South Dakota Senator Sheldon Songstad may face, not just the largest bribery charge in world history but indictment for conspiracy to murder as well.
What is amazing about this case is the amount of money involved, totaling $9.5 trillion US dollars, in fact the entire GNP of the United States for several years.Sundquist and Songstad, wanted $30 billion out of the proceeds to pay themselves along with Congress, the US Treasury Department, five Supreme Court justices and two former US presidents.
Best of all, the whole thing is on tape, a “shakedown” attempt against Ambassador Lee Wanta, former White House intelligence chief under President Ronald Reagan and editor at Veterans Today.

Sundquist and Songstad left, on a recording at Wanta’s embassy, full details, not only of their ability to virtually buy the entire US government and deliver a multi-trillion dollar settlement authorized to Wanta by the US Supreme Court, but were recorded making arrangements for the murder of Wanta as well. 
Read More……….Source: Excerpt from Veteran’s Today

Yes beautiful, but that rifle was made in China? Russia? Israel? USA?

Yes beautiful, but that rifle was made in China? Russia? Israel? USA?

I am just saying that when you look a little deeper into this picture, a beautiful African Warrior who is carrying a weapon made by the enemies of all Africans.

When she needs more ammunition or another rifle she has to go to the ones who manufacture these weapons, and they are most likely, as I am sure they are, of European or Asian Descent. And as we know these are the same people who have invaded and colonized the African peoples for way too long. Europeans through the gun, bible, disease and intimidation, and Asians through the slow subliminal take over of their natural resources and infrastructure.

Look at any picture of Africans fighting against other Africans. Where are their weapons manufactured? That is the question that comes to mind when I see this picture. Besides the beauty, I see behind it, the destruction of African civilizations down through the ages. The difference here is that she is not wearing Army fatigues, or a bullet proof vest or any other such armor to protect her from an incoming or errant bullet from another’s rifle.

Hopefully, she is on her way to hunt some food for her family and not on her way to kill another African!! 

Obama Charged With 'Imperial Hubris' Unmatched Even By Bush

Obama, the Marionette

When this man first came on the scene, I was very skeptical. It became mortal combat to even mention that he may not be the “Savior” Messiah that folks had been waiting for. So, I quietly took my place among the dissenters and waited. It has become clear that I was waiting for the masses to wake up, not for him to change. Clearly, he has been what he has been all along. Clear indicators were his assessment that 911 was caused by Arabs with box cutters, no indictment for Bush/Chaney war crimes, and let’s get out of Iraq and go into Afghanistan. Those positions alone should have alerted the entire world community, that under that handsome face and dancing swagger was a war monger, the likes we have seen from the days of blatant Roman & Ottoman Empire builders to name a few.


Now, look at his eyes. Even this picture with his hands up in the manner that a marionette would be held, display invisible strings. He is a puppet of the first degree, a mind-controlled marionette who does and most like has to do the will of his controllers.

He has lost any semblance of autonomy, sovereignty or self-determination. He does not think, he does not question, he does not rebel. He cannot. The part of his brain that once housed free thinking, free will, has been entirely lobotomized. Here we see, a clear picture of a man who is lost, completely lost from reality, troops on the ground, in the air, or anywhere.


“God bless our troops” is a misnomer….. until he verifies which “God” he is speaking of, and even then, it is highly unlikely that the “God” of which he speaks is at all concerned with blessing the troops. Unless, of course, we realize that there are many “Gods” and to whom he is bequeathing his troops, is a question that requires serious scrutiny. That “God” is a blood thirsty hater of truth, justice and peace. That “God” seeks vengeance and lusts off the souls, and bodies of brutally murdered and assassinated innocent men, women and children. That “God” feeds off despair and agony and like a vicious swarm of locusts, that “God” sends its minions to devour the grotesquely disembodied. That “God” waits in the war theaters created around the world and drinks with luscious delight the carnage and spillage of blood sprouting from the open head, leg and neck wounds of those who barely knew what hit them. That “God” hysterically laughs at the ignorance of those who are led to it. That “God” is the absolute epitome of Psycho-pathic-sado-masochistic Psychosis that makes the most horrid of beings look beautiful. That “God” has promised a nice warm seat in the heart of hell for its puppet and all the minions who follow.

Unfortunately, it may be too late to ring the alarm bell, and wake this ONE up! Whatever he had, has been lost. And it is very sad. A golden opportunity to move the entire world into a new directions, based on the influence that the US has, and yet, the entire world is now much worse off than it was before he came into office. I wonder what happened to all those New Age Channellers who were lauding the praises of this “man” and what he represented. Even the astrologers caused one to wonder if they were authentic or just sock puppets like the rest. It appears as though the entire world was hijacked into believing that “CHANGE HAD REALLY COME”!

Things have definitely changed. The access to alternative media has made it virtually impossible for the “false flag” scenarios to hold the attention of the masses for too long. I firmly believe as I have stated before, that the election of Barack Hussein Obama into the position of the 44th President of the United states was the biggest hoax, psyops, media ramping up of  the “Big Lie”, etc, more than any other situation in human history since the invention of Jesus Christ! His election has served so many purposes on so many levels it is mind boggling to watch all the pieces fall right into place. The Grand Chess board and design for a new American Century took its last major leap be making sure that BHO got elected!! He ushered in the NWO in a way that no other world event or crisis or natural disaster could. He represents ALL OF these and much more by his position and presence in the White House.

Whether he goes down in history as the worst president of the United states or the most misguided president of the United States, one thing is certain, he will leave a legacy behind to be topped by none, short of a complete take over and colonization of the entire Planet via an Alien Invasion.

Obama Charged With ‘Imperial Hubris’ Unmatched Even By Bush

Following his announcement to bomb Syria without
congressional approval, president slammed for total disregard for
constitutional safeguards regarding war-making.

By Jon Queally for Common Dreams |

September 13, 2014

A day after President Obama told the American public he was preparing
to bomb targets inside the sovereign state of Syria and that he did not
need congressional approval to do so, critics are lashing out against
what Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale
University, described as “imperial hubris” on Friday.

In his scathing op-ed in the New York Times, Ackerman writes:

President Obama’s declaration of war against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition. Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.


Mr. Bush gained explicit congressional consent for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
In contrast, the Obama administration has not even published a legal
opinion attempting to justify the president’s assertion of unilateral
war-making authority. This is because no serious opinion can be written.This became clear when White
House officials briefed reporters before Mr. Obama’s speech to the
nation on Wednesday evening. They said a war against ISIS was justified
by Congress’s authorization of force against Al Qaeda after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks, and that no new approval was needed.But the 2001 authorization for the use of military force
does not apply here. That resolution — scaled back from what Mr. Bush
initially wanted — extended only to nations and organizations that
“planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 attacks.

And Ackerman’s not alone.

Robert Chesney, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, told the Daily Beast this week that Obama’s claim of authority to bomb ISIS targets in Syria was “on its face” an “implausible argument.”

“The 2001 AUMF requires a nexus
to al Qaeda or associated forces of al Qaeda fighting the United
States,” explained Chesney, but “since ISIS broke up with al Qaeda it’s
hard to make” the case that authority granted by the AUMF  still
applies.     Continue reading here:  Obama Charged With ‘Imperial Hubris’ Unmatched Even By Bush

NB COMMENTARY "Missouri carries out eighth execution this year after rejecting concerns over 'inhumane' sedative"

Missouri carries out eighth execution this year after rejecting concerns over ‘inhumane’ sedative

EXCERPT: “Johnny Sutton, the lead prosecutor at Trottie’s trial, said …………………….’He hunted them down,’ Sutton said. ‘The self-defense claim is absolutely ridiculous. He kicked in their door. … They already were worried about him. He was making threats and trying to run her off the road.’This one was so cold and calculated.’ 

NB COMMENTARY

I fail to understand how one type of murder is better than another type of murder. For example, if I planned to kill someone after a 20 year stay locked up in my basement, would that not be considered per-meditated murder?

How any of this “killing” makes any sense, is beyond me. 

Killing another person who killed another person does not bring that person back, nor can the latter go and get them and bring them back. It’s a total waste of time and resources.

I also wonder about the so called “witnesses”. Aren’t they complicit in this murder? No they didn’t pull the trigger, but weren’t they at the scene of the crime? How many people have been arrested and jailed for just being there?

I wonder about the mental stability of this entire system that condones, implements and financially supports this type of murder, that is blatant and cold, and out in the open with no question of who done it. Yet others are arrested, tried and convicted, sometimes even wrongfully and given the death penalty.

What a backwards psychology!

How does the person who administers the punishment sleep at night without nightmares and visits in the dream world from the person they just killed. Yet, this society wishes that the so-called convict sleep restlessly forever, with no peace in their lives ever.

And, quiet as it’s kept, the so-called criminal given the death penalty has friends, family and loved ones too. What makes their pain of the loss of their loved one less than the loss of the family who feels so right in killing the criminal who killed their mother, brother, sister, father or friend??

These and other questions plague my mind as I watch the way the human beings treat each other. And in this case, they are actually conversing, debating and fighting over which way to kill someone is more humane.  I am not sure what the DSM-IV would diagnose this condition of the mind as, but it is certainly a pervasive mental illness.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2750483/Missouri-carries-eighth-execution-year-rejecting-concerns-inhumane-sedative.html#ixzz3CvoEWqRg  Missouri carries out eighth execution this year after rejecting concerns over ‘inhumane’ sedative

A Missouri inmate became the eight was put to death in the early hours of this morning for the killing of two people during a restaurant robbery in 1998.

Earl Ringo Jr., 40, was executed at 12:22am by lethal injection after a plea for a stay of execution – based on irregularities in the use of lethal injection drugs in the state – was refused.

Ringo’s last words came from the Quran and expressed belief and wishes for after death. He wiggled his feet as the process began, breathed deeply a few times, then closed his eyes, all in a matter of seconds.

Earl Ringo Jr., 40, was executed today for the killing of two people during a restaurant robbery in 1998

He had declined to request a last meal, eating instead the Salisbury steak and macaroni and cheese offered to other inmates.

In the early hours of July 4, 1998, Ringo and an accomplice killed delivery driver Dennis Poyser and manager trainee JoAnna Baysinger at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Columbia.

Both victims were shot dead at point-blank range.

The run-up to Ringo’s execution was shrouded by controversy, as Missouri continues to use the sedative, midazolam, despite claims that the pre-execution drug is inhumane.

Earlier this year in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona.

In April, gruesome scenes accompanied the execution of Clayton Lockett, a murderer and rapist who shot his 19-year-old victim and ordered a friend to bury her alive.

It was a full 43 minutes after the drug was administered in the Oklahoma execution chamber that the convicted killer died. During this time, Lockett thrashed violently, lurching forward against his restraints, writhing and attempting to speak.

Willie Trottie,
who turned 45 Monday,
shot and killed 24-year-old
Barbara Canada,
and her brother, Titus

Witnesses described his body twisting, and his head reaching up from the gurney, before the curtains were drawn around the chamber obscuring Lockett’s final minutes from public view.

In January, convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire appeared to gurgle, gasp for air and convulse for around 10 minutes after being sentenced to death using an experimental two-drug concoction including midazolam. 

Chilling scenes also occurred in the Arizona execution chamber in July, when Joseph Rudolph Wood took nearly two hours to die from the lethal injection. 

Witnesses told how the murderer appeared to be struggling to breathe after the sedation and then gasped desperately for breath at least 600 times before falling still. 

Ringo’s attorneys had argued that the drug could dull his senses and leave him unable to express any pain or suffering during the process.

They had asked a federal appeals court to postpone the execution until a hearing over Missouri’s use of midazolam. 

Attorney Richard Sindel claimed that Missouri’s use of midazolam essentially violates its own protocol, which provides for pentobarbital as the lone execution drug. But the courts and Gov. Jay Nixon had refused to halt Ringo’s execution over the concerns.

The Missouri Department of Corrections says it administers midazolam before executions and not as part of its execution protocol.

‘It should not be lost in the national debate over the death penalty that Earl Ringo Jr. was responsible for the murders of two innocent Missourians. For 16 years he avoided payment for this crime. Tonight he has paid the penalty,’ Missouri’s Attorney General, Chris Koster, said in a statement.

A clemency petition to Nixon had also cited concerns about the fact that Ringo was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury.

Ringo was sentenced to death by lethal injection (file picture).  His execution is the eighth in Missouri this year

Chilling scenes accompanied the executions of Joseph Rudolph Wood, left, Dennis McGuire, centre and Clayton Lockett, right, who were all administered the pre-execution sedative midazolam

On July 3, 1998, Ringo told his accomplice Quentin Jones about his plan to rob the Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Columbia, where he once worked. Jones agreed to join him.

Before sunrise on July 4, Ringo and Jones hid behind a grease pit in the back of the restaurant. Poyser and Baysinger arrived and entered the restaurant. Ringo followed them and shot Poyser, 45, killing him instantly.

He then ordered Baysinger, 22, to open a safe. She pulled out $1,400 and gave it to him.

Ringo gave the gun to Jones, who stood with the weapon pointed at Baysinger’s head for a minute and a half before pulling the trigger.

Interviews with restaurant workers and former workers led police to Ringo. Detectives found a blue ski mask, gun receipt, bulletproof vest and other evidence at the home of his mother.

THE CASE OF WILLIAM HAPP

Happ – who raped and killed Angie Crowley, 21, in 1986 – died by lethal injection in 2013

William Happ, 51, was the first death row inmate to be injected with midazolam hydrochloride.

The execution began at 6.02pm at Florida State Prison. Happ’s eyes opened and he blinked several times.

He closed and opened them again two minutes later. He then yawned and his jaw dropped open.

At 6.08pm, the official overseeing the execution tugged at Happ’s eyelids and grasped his shoulder to check for a response. There was none.

A minute later, Happ’s head began moving back and forth and shortly thereafter his breathing stopped. 

He was pronounced dead at 6.16pm.

Ringo admitted to the robbery but claimed the shootings were in self-defense. He was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to death.

Jones, of Louisville, Kentucky, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, but he was spared the death penalty when he agreed to testify against Ringo.

Jama Brown, who was married for to Poyser for 24 years, asked that people remember the victims.

‘I can only tell you there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him or wonder what my life would be like today, not only for myself, but for my kids,’ she said. 

In a statement she added: ‘Please do not make this about how executions shouldn’t take place. Put your effort on how we can stop people from committing these terrible actions.

‘Please remember these two wonderful people who just wanted to go to work on the Fourth of July to support their families.’

Ringo’s execution is the eighth in the state this year and the tenth since November.

St. Louis Public Radio reported last week that Missouri administered midazolam to all nine inmates put to death since November. Corrections department spokesman David Owen said midazolam ‘is used to relieve the offender’s level of anxiety’ and is not part of the actual execution process.

The execution was one of two scheduled for today in the U.S. This afternoon Texas plans to execute Willie Trottie for killing his common-law wife and her brother in 1993.

Trottie’s execution will be Texas’ eighth this year. Florida has performed seven executions in 2014, and all other states have a combined six.

Both Missouri and Texas use pentobarbital as their execution drug but decline to disclose where the drug is obtained.

‘They don’t tell you what it is and where it comes from,’ Trottie told The Associated Press. ‘What I’ve learned in 20 years here on death row is all you can do is say, ‘OK.’

‘I’m ready whichever way it goes. If God says, ‘Yes,’ I’m ready.’

Trottie, who turned 45 Monday, shot and killed 24-year-old Barbara Canada, and her 28-year-old brother, Titus, at the Canada family home in Houston. Canada’s mother and sister were also wounded.

Lawyers for Trottie argued in their appeal that the one-time deliveryman and security guard suffered poor representation in his initial trial. 

They said his counsel failed to present witnesses who would have told jurors Trottie and Barbara Canada were romantically engaged at the time of the killings. Late Monday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal.

Trottie said he and Barbara Canada were on ‘good terms’ despite an on-again, off-again relationship. Trottie said he was defending himself against Titus Canada, who shot first. He said the shooting of his wife was accidental.

‘It wasn’t like I just walked in there and gunned her down,’ he said.

Johnny Sutton, the lead prosecutor at Trottie’s trial, said evidence showed that’s exactly what happened.

‘He hunted them down,’ Sutton said. ‘The self-defense claim is absolutely ridiculous. He kicked in their door. … They already were worried about him. He was making threats and trying to run her off the road.

‘This one was so cold and calculated.’