A Day in the Life: 4/26-28/14

Share
 Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA)

+  Resolving the Atmospheric Emergency  +
    April 28, 2014
 
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
     I’m utterly amazed that pimp/whore CNN is circulating something as mature as the long piece on deft dying near the bottom of this.  Please go the link above it to view the high-quality photos accompanying it.
     Something analogous to this would be quite helpful for Occidentals as an aspect of what Guy McPherson calls Hospice Planet.  Yeah!
     Meanwhile, I’m trying to get assessments of both the proposal to spray salt water into clouds to raise their albedos significantly and the proposal to decompose atmospheric methane with radio waves.  Do you know anyone who can help?
     If both of these indeed are effective, we then stand a slight chance of aborting the nascent Venus Syndrome because we’re dealing simultaneously with both the main cause and the main effect of our appalling Arctic warming.
     Finally, here’s one I missed while skimming Common Dreams last Tuesday.  Please check it out directly below.  I find it quite encouraging that someone with Wen Stephenson’s background (e.g., Boston Globe) would write something as forthright as this–and encouraging too that generally timid media outlets like Nation Mag and Common Dreams would circulate it.
                                                                     Power to the Flora,
                                                                
                                                                     Keith Lampe, Ro-Non-So-Te, Ponderosa Pine
                                                                     Volunteer

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/22-4

Published on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 by The Nation

‘Fuck Earth Day’: Let This Year’s Be the Last

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.”
—Frederick Douglass, 1857

Fuck Earth Day.

No, really. Fuck Earth Day. Not the first one, forty-four years ago, the one of sepia-hued nostalgia, but everything the day has since come to be: the darkest, cruelest, most brutally self-satirizing spectacle of the year.

Fuck it. Let it end here.

End the dishonesty, the deception. Stop lying to yourselves, and to your children. Stop pretending that the crisis can be “solved,” that the planet can be “saved,” that business more-or-less as usual—what progressives and environmentalists have been doing for forty-odd years and more—is morally or intellectually tenable. Let go of the pretense that “environmentalism” as we know it—virtuous green consumerism, affluent low-carbon localism, head-in-the-sand conservationism, feel-good greenwashed capitalism—comes anywhere near the radical response our situation requires.

So, yeah, I’ve had it with Earth Day—and the culture of progressive green denial it represents.

*    *    *

But why Frederick Douglass? Why bring him into this? And who am I to invoke him—a man who was born a slave and who freed himself from slavery, who knew something about struggle, whose words were among the most radical ever spoken on American soil? Who the hell am I? I’ve never suffered racial or any other kind of oppression. I’ve never had to fight for any fundamental rights. I’m not even a radical, really. (Nor am I an “environmentalist”—and never have been.) All I want is a livable world, and the possibility of social justice. So who am I to quote Frederick Douglass?

Let me tell you who I am: I’m a human being. I’m the father of two young children, a 14-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter, who face a deeply uncertain future on this planet. I’m a husband, a son, a brother—and a citizen. And, yes, I’m a journalist, and I’m an activist. And like more and more of us who are fighting for climate justice, I am engaged in a struggle—a struggle—for the fate of humanity and of life on Earth. Not a polite debate around the dinner table, or in a classroom, or an editorial meeting—or an Earth Day picnic. I’m talking about a struggle. A struggle for justice on a global scale. A struggle for human dignity and human rights for my fellow human beings, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable, far and near. A struggle for my own children’s future—but not only my children, all of our children, everywhere. A life-and-death struggle for the survival of all that I love. Because that is what the climate fight and the fight for climate justice is. That’s what it is.

Because, I’m sorry, this is not a test. This is really happening. The Arctic and the glaciers are melting. The great forests are dying and burning. The oceans are rising and acidifying. The storms, the floods—the droughts and heat waves—are intensifying. The breadbaskets are parched and drying. And all of it faster and sooner than scientists predicted. The window in which to act is closing before our eyes.

Any discussion of the situation must begin by acknowledging the science and the sheer lateness of the hour—that the chance for any smooth, gradual transition has passed, that without radical change the kind of livable and just future we all want is simply inconceivable. The international community has, of course, committed to keeping the global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above the preindustrial average—the level, we’re told, at which “catastrophic” warming can still be avoided (we’ve already raised it almost 1 degree, with still more “baked in” within coming decades). But there’sgood reason to believe that 2 degrees will lead to catastrophic consequences. And of course, what’s “catastrophic” depends on where you live, and how poor you are, and more often than not the color of your skin. If you’re one of the billions of people who live in the poorest and most vulnerable places—from Bangladesh to Louisiana—even 1 degree can mean catastrophe.

But the world’s climate scientists and leading energy experts are telling us that unless the major economies drastically and immediately change course—leaving all but a small fraction of fossil fuel reserves in the ground over the next four decades—we are headed for a temperature rise of 4 or 5 or even 6 degrees C within this century. The World Bank haswarned that 4 degrees “must be avoided.” But we’re not avoiding it. Global emissions are still rising each year. We’re plunging headlong toward the worst-case scenarios—critical global food and water shortages, rapid sea-level rise, social upheaval—and beyond.

The question is not whether we’re going to “stop” global warming, or “solve” the climate crisis; it is whether humanity will act quickly and decisively enough now to save civilization itself—in any form worth saving. Whether any kind of stable, humane and just future—any kind of just society—is still possible.

We know that if the governments of the world actually wanted to address this situation in a serious way, they could. Indeed, a select few, such as Germany, have begun to do so. It can be done—and at relatively low cost. And yet the fossil-fuel industry, and those who do its bidding, have been engaged in a successful decades-long effort to sow confusion, doubt and opposition—and to obstruct any serious policies that might slow the warming, or their profits, and buy us time.

As I’ve said elsewhere, let’s be clear about what this means: at this late date, given what we know and have known for decades, to willfully obstruct any serious response to global warming is to knowingly allow entire countries and cultures to disappear. It is to rob the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet of their land, their homes, their livelihoods, even their lives and their children’s lives—and their children’s children’s lives. For money. For political power.

These are crimes. They are crimes against the Earth, and they are crimes against humanity.

What, are you shocked? The same industry, the same people committing these crimes—while we subsidize them for their trouble—have been getting away with murder along the fence lines and front lines for generations.

What is the proper response to this? How should I respond?

Remain calm, we’re told. No “scare tactics” or “hysterics,” please. Cooler heads will prevail. Enjoy the Earth Day festivities. 

Fuck that.

The cooler heads have not prevailed. It’s been a quarter-century since the alarm was sounded. The cooler heads have failed.

You want sweet, cool-headed reason?

How about this? Masses of people—most of them young, a generation with little or nothing to lose—physically, nonviolently disrupting the fossil-fuel industry and the institutions that support it and abet it. Getting in the way of business as usual. Forcing the issue. Finally acting as though we accept what the science is telling us.

Um, isn’t that a bit extreme? you ask.

Really? You want extreme? Business as usual is extreme. Just ask a climate scientist. The building is burning. The innocents—the poor, the oppressed, the children, your own children—are inside. And the American petro state is spraying fuel, not water, on the flames. That’s more than extreme. It’s homicidal. It’s psychopathic. It’s fucking insane.

*    *    *

Coming to grips with the climate crisis is hard. A friend of mine says it’s like walking around with a knife in your chest. I couldn’t agree more.

So I ask again, in the face of this situation, how does one respond? Many of us, rather than retreat into various forms of denial and fatalism, have reached the conclusion that somethingmore than “environmentalism” is called for, and that a new kind of movement is the only option. That the only thing, at this late hour, offering any chance of averting an unthinkable future—and of getting through the crisis that’s already upon us—is the kind of radical social and political movement that has altered the course of history in the past. A movement far less like contemporary environmentalism and far more like the radical human-rights, social-justice, and liberation struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Does that sound hopelessly naïve to you? Trust me, I get it. I know. I know how it sounds.

And yet here I am. Because I also know that abolishing slavery sounded hopeless and naïve in 1857, when Frederick Douglass spoke of struggle.

What I’m talking about is not a fight to “solve the climate crisis.” That’s not possible anymore. But neither is it simply a fight for human survival—because there are oppressive and dystopian forms of survival, not to mention narcissistic ones, that aren’t worth fighting for.

What I’m talking about is both a fight for survival and a fight for justice—for even the possibility of justice. It’s a fight that transcends environmentalism. It requires something of us beyond the usual politics and proposals, the usual pieties. It requires the kind of commitment you find in radical movements—the kind of struggles, from abolition to women’s, labor and civil rights, that have made possible what was previously unimaginable.

Because our global crisis—not merely environmental but moral and spiritual—is fundamental: it strikes to the root of who we are. It’s a radical situation, requiring a radical response. Not merely radical in the sense of ideology, but a kind of radical necessity. It requires us to find out who we really are—and, nonviolently, in the steps of Gandhi and King and many others, to act. In some cases, to lay everything—everything—on the line.

And it requires us to be honest, with each other and with ourselves, about the situation we face. We’ll never have a movement radical enough, or humane enough, until we are.

That is, until Earth Day is buried—and a day of reckoning begins.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

April 26, 2014

M5.1 Earthquake Hits Greenland Sea

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale hit the Greenland Sea on April 26, 2014, at 03:55:33 UTC at a depth of 10.00 km (6.21 mi). The epicenter of the earthquake is located right on the faultline that crosses the Arctic Ocean, at 73.479°N 7.974°E, some 567km (352mi) SSW of Longyearbyen, Svalbard.

This follows four further recent earthquakes close to Svalbard or on the faultline north of Greenland, as indicated on above map. All these earthquakes struck at a depth of 10.00 km (6.21 mi).

Earthquakes in this region are very worrying, as they can destabilize hydrates contained in the sediment under the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. Furthermore, one earthquake can trigger further earthquakes, especially at locations close by on the same faultline.

Related

– M4.4 Earthquake hits Arctic Ocean north of Greenland

– M4.5 Earthquake hits Arctic Ocean
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/04/m45-earthquake-hits-arctic-ocean.html– Earthquakes in the Arctic Ocean
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/04/earthquakes-in-the-arctic-ocean.html

– Methane, Faults and Sea Ice
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/methane-faults-and-sea-ice.html

– Norwegian Sea hit by 4.6M Earthquake
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/norwegian-sea-hit-by-46m-earthquake.html

– Greenland Sea hit by M5.3 Earthquake
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/greenland-sea-hit-by-m53-earthquake.html

– Earthquake hits waters off Japan
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/earthquake-hits-waters-off-japan.html

– Earthquake hits Laptev Sea
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/earthquake-hits-laptev-sea.html

– Methane Release caused by Earthquakes
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/methane-release-caused-by-earthquakes.html

– Earthquake M6.7 hits Sea of Okhotsk
http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/2013/10/earthquake-m67-hits-sea-of-okhotsk.html

– Sea of Okhotsk
http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/2013/06/sea-of-okhotsk.html

– Seismic activity
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/seismic-activity.html

– Climate Plan
http://climateplan.blogspot.com

Posted by 
———————————————————————————————————————————–
26.04.2014, 20:53, Ann Fillmore <UUzul@aol.com>:
4/26/14 Saturday early morning, West Coast, US — look closely. I caught this just now (remember, these images are several hours old by the time they’re posted). Do you see what’s been sprayed all thru this incoming ‘storm’? Especially look at the top center off the coast of Vancouver Island and down into Seattle and all across Oregon. This is going eastward so it swept over us during the night.
So if you’re feeling like death dug up this morning, eyes stinging and head hurting — it’s NOT Scotch broom allergy entirely, folks.
***

NASA: Chemtrails are Real – Rogue Geoengineers Could Blackmail the Earth

Posted by Chemtrail NewsFeaturedFeatured VideosSaturday, April 26th, 2014

 
Droughts, famine, chemtrails and the global game of risk: geoengineering is real, and inevitable part of the future, when science tries to orchestrate nature in the name of taming climate change, while experts argue over who will make the rules in the global governance of weather modification and geoengineering. Could rogue billionaires tinker with the delicate balance of our Earth? Might a mad scientist even “weaponize” weather control to wield power over the planet? Everything is possible, warns a NASA Jet Propulsion Labs expert. Chemtrails and geoengineering are no longer the things of conspiratorial speculation or retro science fiction — they are the scenarios shaping the world to come as science contemplates how far is too far for man to go in the name of a global environmental crisis?
NASA: Ch
*

Military Jets Spraying Side by Side

Posted by Chemtrail EvidenceFeaturedNorth America Chemtrail VideosSaturday, April 26th, 2014

Aerosol Sprayers Turned Off And On
Thursday, April 24, 2014 View from Old Town, San Diego, CA – Two military “fighter” jets flew east over Ocean Beach, Mission Hills and Hillcrest neighborhoods while releasing unknown sprays. The planes flew in close proximity to each other and turned the sprays off and on independently proving these are not contrails. Today was a heavy spray day with continuous high altitude tanker jets and these low altitude releases as caught on video here.
***

                    Killing Us Softly by Greg Calise

Posted on April 20, 2014

I often write about the dangers of authorities of any kind. Authorities play a control game, and you are being controlled. We have submitted to authorities from the beginning of our lives, and we’ve been caught in this wheel for millennia. Our parents teach it to us, just as they had learned it. Then they send us to school and church, where the teachers and priests claim themselves as authorities. Our parents also put us in front of televisions for hours. We would believe what we saw on television. The man on the news was an authority. So throughout our childhood, in the hopes of good guidance and protection, we submitted ourselves to many authorities. We are taught to trust and believe our authorities, as if they are being truthful to us. But how can they teach truth, when they themselves have been programmed with lies? Authorities have no credibility.

The majority of people have bought into this control game, hoping for rewards, and the ability to control other people. We were all programmed to participate in this game. It’s the only game in town. You see it everywhere. How many people do you know that have claimed authority over others. The work force runs on these principles, as well as religion, government, society, schools and even within the family. We have allowed ourselves to be controlled by others, because we are not strong enough to stand on our own. We have been programmed to submit to authority, and few people have the courage to say no. Most people submit themselves unquestionably to authorities.

534535_536873466341496_1728777355_n

By submitting to an authority, we forfeit our innate sovereignty and freedom. We give our power away to them, as well as our critical thinking. We allow an outside authority to formulate our thoughts. We allow them to order us around, use us and control us. When we were children, we didn’t have much choice. You could only rebel so much without being punished. Yes, think about that. We were programmed to conform with the program, or there would be consequences. We were programmed with fear, intimidation and violence, even from a very young age.

By the time we get out of school, the plan was for everyone to be sufficiently programmed to submit to authorities without question. Everything from the work place, to government and religion; all of them expect unquestioning submission to authorities. Those who question are marginalized or much worse. Those who refuse to conform become outcasts, an outsider.

Notice how many people around you have strong faith and trust in their authorities, believing that they are their well wishers. They unquestionably believe whatever they are told. They don’t have any inclination to question what they hear. They simply accept. And because of that, governments, religions and most other authorities take advantage of that.

When you speak to someone about the evils of the government, they object by saying that our government would never do anything like that. They have faith in government, that they are doing what they can to help  us. They believe the problem lies in bipartisanship, or some other reasons. But they cannot bring themselves to believe that their government, their authority, would intentionally harm them. Many people have unquestioning faith that their government is trying to look after and protect them.

And yet we see every day how the government is not our protector, and it certainly doesn’t care much for the people (especially if you are poor). Look up in the sky and see all of the chemtrails. The government has finally admitted that they are spraying. This is poisoning us, the land, the animals and the water. Why? Because they care about us? I am shocked, that when I mention chemtrails, so many people have never heard of them. I point up into the sky and point to all of the chemtrails. Some see them for the first time, and some people refuse to believe it, claiming they are contrails from jets. Funny how the contrails never looked like that when I was a kid. And where exactly are all of these planes going, criss-crossing the sky in checkerboard patterns? Most people have been so completely programmed, that they cannot see what is right in front of them. How can someone not notice that we are being sprayed?

Fluoride has been proven beyond a doubt to be extremely toxic, and yet they put it in the water, toothpaste and all of the drinks and foods made with that water. Besides being extremely toxic, it also makes people docile. They tell us that it is good for your teeth, but that has been proven false, and actually is detrimental to teeth and bones. Yet people actually want it in the water.

The food additive industry is huge, and it consists of putting dangerous chemicals into the food. Then you have the artificial sweeteners that are also extremely toxic. And worst of all is the genetically modified foods that are now found in most everything. The adverse reactions of GMOs is probably the worst thing that our government has practically forced us to ingest. We can thank our leaders of state and of corporations for pushing all of this upon the populace. So much for having faith and trust in our authorities. And where’s the FDA? In bed with the food producers.

The medical industry is doing its part to slowly kill us. Forced vaccinations are destroying the bodies and minds of our children. Why are our authorities doing this? This is a short assessment of what a friend of mine has noticed concerning vaccines:

“After I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, a severe and debilitating auto-immune disease, one of the first things I found when searching for answers was a study that indicates that those who receive the MMR vaccine are statistically 3 times more likely to develop an auto-immune disease in their lifetime.

“That is just scratching the surface, however. If I ever had any doubt of the immune system damage as well as neurological damage that these vaccines cause, that doubt has completely vanished. After having run a  daycare for the last year I have seen first hand the effect these vaccines have. I watch young toddlers turn from bright shining stars of light and love, and keen innate intelligence, into completely disconnected (emotionally and socially) zombie babies. The difference after a child receives these shots is frightening. It completely changes their personality, significantly reduces cognitive functioning, and in most cases damages their innate sense of empathy (making them more aggressive to other children).

“This is no personal bias I promise you. On an almost daily basis I can observe the vast difference in the vaccinated children vs. the un-vaccinated children (who display far higher intelligence, focus, empathy, as well as an undefinable quality of brightness and light).”    —     Ceth

The entire medical and pharmaceutical companies, the authorities people put their faith and trust in to heal them, are corrupt, and they don’t mind killing or injuring people for money. It’s an industry.

The banks are robbing us, the police are beating and killing us, our government is stripping us of all of our rights and freedoms, robbing us along the way. The priests are all lying to us, as they also rob us along the way. Everywhere you look, the very authorities we have placed our faith and trust in are all thieves and rogues. Of course they are. It is a control game, and they have control. They falsely claimed themselves as authorities, and we have submitted ourselves to them. We all bought the lies.

Who gave some group of men absolute authority over our lives? They took it, either by force, violence, manipulation or thievery. And we, the people, accepted them as such. Mind you, in the past, it was usually at gunpoint. Now they have tremendous tools for programming people to believe anything, so the guns are not nearly as necessary. Although the police are always there to remind you that there are severe penalties  for stepping out of line.

Which all brings us to the title of this article. We are in the midst of a slow kill. Who is being killed? All of us. What we are experiencing is a slow genocide of humanity. Who would do such a thing? Predators. How else can you explain the chemtrails, the poisoned food, water and air, the medical industry that regularly kills and maims those who pay them exorbitantly to heal them? We are at constant aggressive war, lied to at every step, robbed, mislead and violated. What we are experiencing at present is slow genocide. The effects of the consumption of poisonous foods, water and vaccine is already visible. America is suffering from rises of many diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular, autism, allergies, digestive disorders and impaired cognitive abilities, just to mention a few. Imagine what the future will manifest.

We are a herd; the flock. We are food for the gods. They feed off of our emotions, especially fear, violence, suffering and worship. Different flavors. They infiltrate our minds. They have us hypnotized under their spell, and we have become so illusional, that we actually worship them, as if they are almighty god. We are hooked up to the milking machine, where our power is syphoned off, leaving us weak, disoriented and confused. Now it seems that the predators are thinning out their herds. That and preparing humanity to become cyborgs for the collective. They have their many minions who carry out their orders, Traitors to their own people. The very people that we put our faith and trust in to protect and guide us, are our worst enemies. Somehow, we have bought into the lie, and we are living in it.

This is the stark reality. All we can do is to inform those who are interested. We can be careful about what we ingest and the water we drink. It’s not always easy, but it is important for your own well being. I have orgonite and other devices to clean the very polluted electrical and microwave energies. And I have disconnected from the game.

We have somehow been placed into this game, this game of control, and we are all being played. The game is rigged. We have all become slaves. Even those who seem like powerful controllers, are slaves to their controllers. There are no real winners in this diabolical game, except for the top predators.

This game seems to be ending badly for humanity. The cards seem stacked against us, as we quietly submit to being slowly poisoned. This is not a game I wish to participate in. That is a choice each of us makes on a daily basis; to participate, or not.

– Greg Calise

George Carlin expresses this brilliantly:

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Detained “OSCE Monitors” in Eastern Ukraine Turn Out to Be NATO Military Intelligence

Global Research, April 27, 2014
In-depth Report: 

      People’s mayor of Slavyansk tells about detention of the OSCE monitors: all of them turned out be NATO military intelligence officers accompanied by two officers of the Ukrainian Army High Command.

It was discovered that they were busy collecting and marking locations of all the checkpoints and defense positions of Slavyansk’s self-defense. They also carried explosive cartridges and ammunition.

original Russian

***

Moving Closer to War. Washington’s Arrogance Is Capable of Driving the World to Destruction

Without the cover provided by Europe and the presstitute media, Washington would not be able to drive the world to war.

Global Research, April 27, 2014

The Obama regime, wallowing in hubris and arrogance, has recklessly escalated the Ukrainian crisis into a crisis with Russia. Whether intentionally or stupidly, Washington’s propagandistic lies are driving the crisis to war. Unwilling to listen to any more of Washington’s senseless threats, Moscow no longer accepts telephone calls from Obama and US top officials.

The crisis in Ukraine originated with Washington’s overthrow of the elected democratic government and its replacement with Washington’s hand-chosen stooges. The stooges proceeded to act in word and deed against the populations in the former Russian territories that Soviet Communist Party leaders had attached to Ukraine. The consequence of this foolish policy is agitation on the part of the Russian speaking populations to return to Russia. Crimea has already rejoined Russia, and eastern Ukraine and other parts of southern Ukraine are likely to follow.

Instead of realizing its mistake, the Obama regime has encouraged the stooges Washington installed in Kiev to use violence against those in the Russian-speaking areas who are agitating for referendums so that they can vote their return to Russia. The Obama regime has encouraged violence despite President Putin’s clear statement that the Russian military will not occupy Ukraine unless violence is used against the protesters.

We can safely conclude that Washington either does not listen when spoken to or Washington desires violence.

As Washington and NATO are not positioned at this time to move significant military forces into Ukraine with which to confront the Russian military, why is the Obama regime trying to provoke action by the Russian military? A possible answer is that Washington’s plan to evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base having gone awry, Washington’s fallback plan is to sacrifice Ukraine to a Russian invasion so that Washington can demonize Russia and force a large increase in NATO military spending and deployments.

In other words, the fallback prize is a new cold war and trillions of dollars more in profits for Washington’s military/security complex.

The handful of troops and aircraft that Washington has sent to “reassure” the incompetent regimes in those perennial trouble spots for the West–Poland and the Baltics–and the several missile ships sent to the Black Sea amount to nothing but symbolic provocations.

Economic sanctions applied to individual Russian officials signal nothing but Washington’s impotence. Real sanctions would harm Washington’s NATO puppet states far more than the sanctions would hurt Russia.

It is clear that Washington has no intention of working anything out with the Russian government. Washington’s demands make this conclusion unavoidable. Washington is demanding that the Russian government pull the rug out from under the protesting populations in eastern and southern Ukraine and force the Russian populations in Ukraine to submit to Washington’s stooges in Kiev. Washington also demands that Russia renege on the reunification with Crimea and hand Crimea over to Washington so that the original plan of evicting Russia from its Black Sea naval base can go forward.

In other words, Washington’s demand is that Russia put Humpty Dumpty back together again and hand him over to Washington.

This demand is so unrealistic that it surpasses the meaning of arrogance. The White House Fool is telling Putin: “I screwed up my takeover of your backyard. I want you to fix the situation for me and to ensure the success of the strategic threat I intended to bring to your backyard.”

The presstitute Western media and Washington’s European puppet states are supporting this unrealistic demand. Consequently, Russian leaders have lost all confidence in the word and intentions of the West, and this is how wars start.

European politicians are putting their countries at great peril and for what gain? Are Europe’s politicians blackmailed, threatened, paid off with bags of money, or are they so accustomed to following Washington’s lead that they are unable to do anything else? How do Germany, UK, and France benefit from being forced into a confrontation with Russia by Washington?

Washington’s arrogance is unprecedented and is capable of driving the world to destruction. Where is Europe’s sense of self-preservation? Why hasn’t Europe issued arrest warrants for every member of the Obama regime?

Without the cover provided by Europe and the presstitute media, Washington would not be able to drive the world to war.

***

Beneath the Ukraine Crisis: Shale Gas

Global Research, April 25, 2014
Consortiumnews 24 April 2014
In-depth Report: 

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, speaking to Ukrainian and other business leaders at the National Press Club in Washington on Dec. 13, 2013, at a meeting sponsored by Chevron.

Behind the geopolitics pitting Russia against the West – and the ethnic tensions tearing Ukraine east and west – another backdrop for understanding this deepening conflict is the big-money competition for Ukraine’s oil and natural gas.

The crisis gripping Ukraine has plunged transatlantic relations to their lowest point since the Cold War and threatens to send Ukraine into an armed conflict with potentially dire consequences for the country and the wider region.

Moscow’s alleged meddling in eastern Ukraine and its earlier annexation of Crimea spurred worldwide rebukes and much international commentary regarding the growing East-West divide. But one aspect that we have heard less about is the corporate struggle for Ukraine’s oil and natural gas. By some accounts, it is this struggle that is as much to blame for the current crisis as any geopolitical tug-of-war between East and West.

Ukraine has Europe’s third-largest shale gas reserves at 42 trillion cubic feet,according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. While for years U.S. oil companies have been pressing for shale gas development in countries such as Britain, Poland, France and Bulgaria only to be rebuffed by significant opposition from citizens and local legislators concerned about the environmental impacts of shale gas extraction – including earthquakes and groundwater contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” – there has been considerably less opposition in Ukraine, a country that has been embroiled in numerous gas disputes with the Russian Federation in recent years.

Russia’s state-owned Gazprom, controlling nearly one-fifth of the world’s gas reserves, supplies more than half of Ukraine’s gas annually, and about 30 percent of Europe’s. It has often used this as political and economic leverage over Kiev and Brussels, cutting gas supplies repeatedly over the past decade (in the winters of 2005-2006, 2007-2008, and again in 2008-2009), leading to energy shortages not only in Ukraine, but Western European countries as well. This leverage, however, came under challenge in 2013 as Ukraine took steps towards breaking its dependence on Russian gas.

On Nov. 5, 2013 (just a few weeks before the Maidan demonstrations began in Kiev), Chevron signed a 50-year agreement with the Ukrainian government to develop oil and gas in western Ukraine. According to the New York Times, “The government said that Chevron would spend $350 million on the exploratory phase of the project and that the total investment could reach $10 billion.”

In announcing the deal, President Viktor Yanukovych said that it “will let Ukraine satisfy its gas needs completely and, under the optimistic scenario, export energy resources by 2020.” Reuters characterized the deal as ”another step in a drive for more energy independence from Russia.”

The United States offered its diplomatic support, with Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, saying, “I’m very determined to cooperate with the Ukrainian government in strengthening Ukraine’s energy independence.”

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Victoria Nuland spoke at an international business conference sponsored by Chevron on Dec. 13, 2013, after just returning from Kiev where she handed out cookies and sandwiches to demonstrators on the Maidan. In her speech, she urged Ukraine to sign a new deal with the IMF which would “send a positive signal to private markets and would increase foreign direct investment that is so urgently needed in Ukraine.” This is important for putting Ukraine “on the path to strengthening the sort of stable and predictable business environment that investors require,” she said.

Although stability and predictability are not exactly the words that people would associate with Ukraine these days, Western energy companies have continued to maneuver for corporate rights over Ukraine’s shale gas deposits. Last fall, officials were in negotiations with an ExxonMobil-led consortium to explore for hydrocarbons off Ukraine’s western Black Sea coast.

On Nov. 27, the Ukrainian government signed another production-sharing agreement with a consortium of investors led by Italian energy company Eni to develop unconventional hydrocarbons in the Black Sea. “We have attracted investors which will within five to seven years maximum double Ukraine’s domestic gas production,” Yanukovych said following the agreement.

At the time of Yanukovych’s ouster in February, Chevron and the Ukrainian government had been negotiating an operating agreement for the shale development effort in western Ukraine, and Chevron spokesman Cameron Van Ast said that the negotiations would go forward despite Yanukovych fleeing the country. “We are continuing to finalize our joint operating agreement and the government continues to be supportive,” Van Ast said.

Royal Dutch Shell is also engaged in the country, having signed an agreement last year with the government of Yanukovych to explore a shale formation in eastern Ukraine. When it comes to Crimea, numerous oil companies including Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil, Repsol and even Petrochina have shown interest in developing its offshore energy assets.

Believing that Crimea’s onshore and offshore fields will live up to expectations, these companies have greatly expanded their exploration of the Black Sea off the Crimean peninsula. Some analysts believe that one of Vladimir Putin’s motivations for annexing Crimea was to ensure that Gazprom will control Crimean offshore energy assets – in addition to ensuring the continued use of Crimea as host to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

It is clear that all of these oil and gas companies – backed by their governments, including those of the Russian Federation and the United States – are deeply embroiled in the Ukrainian crisis, with much invested and much at stake. But with their disproportionate influence over Ukraine’s future, it should be kept in mind that the number one responsibility of any corporation is to increase profit margins for its shareholders, not necessarily to promote the democracy or sovereignty of the countries they are operating in.

This is particularly the case for Chevron and Shell, both of which have been implicated in major human rights violations in Nigeria. Chevron has been accused of recruiting and supplying Nigerian military forces involved in massacres of environmental protesters in the oil-rich Niger Delta, and Shell has faced charges of complicity in torture and other human rights abuses against the Ogoni people of southern Nigeria.

With this in mind, the Ukrainian people – whether in the east of the country or the west – might want to rethink what is meant by “energy independence,” and whether the future they seek can truly be met by placing their hopes in the benevolence of foreign oil and gas companies.

***

Ukraine Fact-Checking: Kerry Bullying, Bluster and Big Lies

Global Research, April 26, 2014

A previous article called Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a world class diplomat. John Kerry is polar opposite. He represents the worst of America’s dark side.

He’s vying for Washington’s worst ever Secretary of State top dishonor. He’s what Paul Craig Roberts calls a “two-bit punk.”

He’s a war criminal multiple times over. Demagoguery punctuates his comments. It exceeds the worst of Cold War rhetoric. He’s been caught red-handed numerous times in bald-faced lies.

He disdains rule of law principles. He supports war. He deplores peace. He’s indifferent to human suffering. He’s a monument to wrong over right.

He disgraces his country, position and humanity. He belongs in prison, not high office. On April 24, he bashed Russia irresponsibly.

He did so recklessly. He did maliciously. Big Lies infested his rhetoric. He turned truth on its head.

Four parties in Geneva “agreed that all sides would refrain from violence, intimidation, and taking provocative actions,” he said.

“We agreed that illegal groups would lay down their arms…We agreed to implement” objectives discussed.

“From day one,” he added, “the government of Ukraine started making good on its commitments – from day one.”

“From day one, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk has kept his word. He immediately agreed to help vacate buildings.”

“He suspended Ukraine’s counterterrorism initiative over Easter, choosing de-escalation, despite Ukraine’s legitimate, fundamental right to defend its own territory and its own people.”

Fact: Kiev putschists have no legitimacy whatever. They have no legal authority. They represent mob rule.

Fact: “From day one,” they violated agreed on Geneva terms. They did so straightaway. They deployed military forces and Right Sector thugs to Eastern Ukraine.

They attacked nonviolent civilians. They committed cold-blooded murder.

Fact: Yatsenyuk lied. He escalated conflict. Kiev buildings remain occupied illegally.

Kerry: “…On day one, Yatsenyuk…committed his government to undertake constitutional reform that will strengthen the powers of regions.”

“He directly addressed the concerns expressed by the Russians, and he did so on day one.”

Fact: No constitutional reform exists. No steps were taken so far. No legitimate ones are planned. Putschists want unchallenged nationwide control.

They reject local autonomy. They declared war on freedom. They’re waging it against fundamental rights. They’re murdering their own people.

Russian nationals are threatened. They live in fear for good reason. Claiming otherwise is false.

Kerry:

“…Yatsenuk has publicly announced amnesty legislation -once more, in his words – for all those who surrender arms, come out of the premises and will begin with the Ukrainian people to build a sovereign and independent Ukraine.”

“That is a promise made by the interim government to the people of Ukraine.”

Fact: Coup-appointed fascists run Ukraine. Neo-Nazi extremists hold high government positions.

Trust isn’t their long suit. Pledges aren’t worth the paper they’re written.

Major ones so far were broken straightaway. Business as usual continues. Expect nothing different going forward.

Kerry:

“That is leadership that upholds both the spirit and the letter of a Geneva agreement.”

Fact: Actions speak louder than words. Putschist policies reveal their true agenda. Kerry lied claiming otherwise.

Kerry:

“The world has rightly judged that Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and the Government of Ukraine are working in good faith.”

“And the world, sadly, has rightly judged that Russia has put its faith in distraction, deception, and destabilization.”

“For seven days, Russia has refused to take a single concrete step in the right direction.”

“Not a single Russian official, not one, has publicly gone on television in Ukraine and called on the separatists to support the Geneva agreement, to support the stand-down, to give up their weapons, and get out of the Ukrainian buildings.”

Fact: Yatsenyuk is an illegitimate “two-bit punk.” He’s a convenient US stooge.

Russia has gone all-out tirelessly to resolve Ukrainian crisis conditions responsibly. Washington-directed putschists escalated them.

On Friday, Lavrov addressed Ukraine. He did so forthrightly. He “insists on the fulfillment of the Geneva agreements…” He opposes “attempts to distort them.”

Kiev putschists acted against their own people, he added. “The so-called Easter ceasefire was disrupted.”

“What Kiev authorities are doing today is just a punitive operation which already resulted in many victims.”

“These are bloody crimes for which they will be held responsible.” Washington and rogue EU partners want unchallenged Ukrainian control.

“It is high time (they) admit(ted) the truth that they do not have a monopoly (on) truth. (T)his is unacceptable to make a certain picture of current events as the West want it to be.”

“The West wants to take control of Ukraine guided only by their geo-political ambitions.”

“Today it is impossible to conceal the truth. And attempts to do so lead to nothing good.”

Lavrov wants Kiev-directed violence stopped. He wants Right Sector neo-Nazis disarmed.

He wants Geneva agreed on terms fully implemented. He called doing so fundamental to resolving Ukraine’s crisis.

Russia is doing everything possible to help, he explained. Kiev putschists initiated violence.

They’re escalating it. They’re following US diktats. Lavrov pointed fingers the right way.

RT International (formerly Russia Today) represents the best of responsible news, commentary and analysis.

Not according to Kerry. He lied saying “the propaganda bullhorn that is the state-sponsored Russia Today program, has been deployed to promote – actually, Russia Today network – has deployed to promote President Putin’s fantasy about what is playing out on the ground.”

“They almost spend full time devoted to this effort to propagandize and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine.”

“Instead, in plain sight, Russia continues to fund, coordinate, and fuel a heavily armed separatist movement in Donetsk.”

“Meanwhile, Russian leaders are making increasingly outrageous claims to justify their action – that the CIA invented the internet in order to control the world or that the forces occupying buildings, armed to the teeth, wearing brand new matching uniforms and moving in disciplined military formation, are merely local activists seeking to exercise their legitimate rights.”

“That is absurd, and there is no other word to describe it.”

Fact: It bears repeating. RT International shames Western media. Managed news misinformation garbage substitutes for responsible journalism.

RT delivers the real thing. Claims otherwise are false. Kerry’s comments turned truth on its head. Big Lies infested them.

Kerry:

“The world knows that peaceful protesters don’t come armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons, the latest issue from the Russian arsenal, hiding the insignias on their brand new matching military uniforms, and speaking in dialects that every local knows comes from thousands of miles away.”

“The world knows that the Russian intelligence operatives arrested in Ukraine didn’t just take a wrong turn on the highway.”

“In fact, we have seen soldiers wearing uniforms identical to the ones Russian soldiers wore in Crimea last month.”

Fact: “The world knows” that Eastern Ukrainian self-defense forces are nonviolent.

“The world knows” their fundamental rights are threatened.

“The world knows” they have every right to defend themselves.

“The world knows” fascist military forces and Right Sector neo-Nazi thugs attacked them.

“The world knows” self-defense activists act on their own volition. No “Russian intelligence operatives” are involved.

Nor in Crimea weeks earlier. Kerry lied claiming otherwise.

Kerry:

“As international observers on the ground have borne witness, prior to Russia’s escalation, there was no violence. There was no broad-scale assault on the rights of people in the east.”

Fact: “The world knows” Kiev putschists govern illegitimately.

“The world knows” all Ukrainians are threatened.

“The world knows” how fascists rule. Fundamental freedoms are being crushed. Rule of law principles are being violated.

“The world knows” Kerry lied about so-called “Russia(n) escalation.”

“The world knows” Eastern Ukrainians want stability. US-directed putschists prevent it.

“The world knows” they instigated violence. They escalated it. They intend more. They’re waging war on their own people.

Kerry:

“The Government of Ukraine has reported the arrest of Russian intelligence agents, including one yesterday who it says was responsible for establishing secure communications allowing Russia to coordinate destabilizing activities in Ukraine.”

Fact: Kiev putschists lied. So-called Russian intelligence agent arrests never happened. No Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine exist.

Kerry lied claiming otherwise. He outrageously called coup-appointed putschists “legitimate.”

Kerry: Russia chose “an illegitimate course of armed violence to try and achieve with the barrel of a gun and the force of a mob what couldn’t be achieved any other way.”

“They’ve tried to create enough chaos in the east to delay or delegitimize the elections, or to force Ukraine to accept a federalism that gives Russia control over its domestic and foreign policies, or even force Ukraine to overreact and create an excuse for military intervention.”

“This is a full-throated effort to actively sabotage the democratic process through gross external intimidation that has brought inside Ukraine, and it is worse even.”

Fact: Russia goes all-out for responsible conflict resolution. US-directed putschists prevent it.

No Russian intimidation exists. Kiev deplores democracy. So does Washington. So-called May elections when held will be farcical. They’ll have no legitimacy whatever.

Kerry:

“We have seen this movie before. We saw it most recently in Crimea, where similar subterfuge and sabotage by Russia was followed by a full invasion – an invasion, by the way, for which President Putin recently decorated Russian special forces at the Kremlin.”

Fact: Crimeans acted on their own volition. They overwhelmingly chose reunification with Russia. They voted 96.77% to do so. Turnout was a record 83%.

Independent monitors called referendum voting scrupulously open, free and fair. Not a single irregularity was found.

No Russian invasion happened. Kerry invented one out of whole cloth. Irresponsible Russia bashing infested his rhetoric. Big Lies substituted for truth.

Kerry: “Nobody should doubt Russia’s hand in” what’s ongoing.

“Our intelligence community tells me that Russia’s intelligence and military intelligence services and special operators are playing an active role in destabilizing eastern Ukraine with personnel, weapons, money, operational planning, and coordination.”

Fact: US intelligence has no information about Russian involvement in Eastern Ukraine. None exists. No “personnel, weapons, money, operational planning, and coordination.” Kerry lied claiming otherwise.

Kerry:

“The world will remain united for Ukraine. So I will say it again. The window to change course is closing. President Putin and Russia face a choice.”

“If Russia chooses the path of de-escalation, the international community – all of us – will welcome it.”

“If Russia does not, the world will make sure that the cost for Russia will only grow. And as President Obama reiterated earlier today, we are ready to act.”

Fact: The world supports fundamental rights of all Ukrainians. Kiev putschists want them denied.

Washington supports their worst policies. Fascists are hardline. They rule one way. They crush resistance. They do so violently. They do it lawlessly.

Russia remains committed for equity, justice and peace. It’s strong and resolute. It has responsible leadership. Rolling over for Washington won’t happen.

Kerry represents US hegemonic ambitions. He reflects the worst of dark side politics. He deplores democracy.

He disdains fundamental human and civil rights. He trashes rule of law principles. He supports war on humanity. He wants it for unchallenged global dominance.

It bears repeating. He’s a “two-bit thug.” He belongs in prison, not high office.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Published on Sunday, April 27, 2014 by Common Dreams

Deal Welcoming US Military into Philippines Slammed as ‘Betrayal’

Ten-year military accord announced Sunday spurns mass movements 

that ousted US military from permanent bases in Philippines in 1992

– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

The U.S. and Philippine governments have agreed on a 10-year pact to open this southeast Asian country to more U.S. troops, warships, and fighter planes, flouting the people’s movements that booted the U.S. military from its permanent Philippine bases over twenty years ago.

“We have lost too much because of the U.S. military presence in our country,” Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson of BAYAN-USA—an alliance of Filipino organizations in the U.S, toldCommon Dreams. “The Philippines has long history of protests against militarization. The protests now are only going to grow.”

The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement was announced Sunday by the White House and confirmed by two anonymous Philippine officials speaking to the Associated Press.

According to AP, which obtained a Philippine government primer, the accord “would give American forces temporary access to selected military camps and allow them to preposition fighter jets and ships.” The primer did not specify how many U.S. troops will be deployed.

The agreement will be signed on Monday before President Barack Obama arrives on a two-day visit to Manila. The deal comes in the midst of Obama’s tour of the Asia-Pacific region, in what is widely seen as a bid to secure a U.S. military “pivot” to the region and push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a so-called “free trade” deal that has been slammed as “corporate colonialism.”

Critics say the U.S. economic and military agenda in the Asia-Pacific is aimed at securing dominance over the region and hedging against China. “Militarization is always the other side of economic intervention,” said Ellorin.

Throughout the Asia-Pacific, and in cities across the U.S., Obama’s trip has been met with protests. “Even before Obama is planned to arrive, they already started holding protests at the U.S. embassy in Manilla, and they were met with violent reaction from security forces,” said Ellorin.

For over 100 years, social movements in the Philippines have opposed U.S. power over their country, which includes more than five decades of direct colonial rule and the backing of brutal dictator Ferdinand Marcos — who was president from 1965 to 1986 until he was overthrown by a popular movement.

Even after Philippine independence, the U.S. maintained a heavy presence of bases and troops, despite widespread opposition to the environmental and social harm they spread, which includes numerous incidents of sexual assaults and rape perpetrated against civilians.

Social movements forced the Philippine government to shut down the last permanent U.S. bases in the country in 1992. However, the U.S. currently sends 500 troops to the southern Philippines annually for so-called counter-terrorism purposes, while 6,500 come each year for training, according tothe Philippine military.

Obama has aggressively pushed to expand this military presence as part of the U.S. military’s “re-balancing” to the Asia-Pacific. The U.S. and Philippine governments have levied U.S. humanitarian response to Typhoon Haiyan to build support for a buildup.

“This is treachery from the Philippines government and a betrayal of our territorial integrity by taking a subservient role to imperialists,” said Ellorin.

She added, “In 1992, it was the people’s movement that ousted the U.S. from two permanent bases. We did it once we can do it again.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Published on Monday, April 28, 2014 by TruthDig.com

The Crime of Peaceful Protest

NEW YORK—Cecily McMillan, wearing a red dress and high heels, her dark, shoulder-length hair stylishly curled, sat behind a table with her two lawyers Friday morning facing Judge Ronald A. Zweibel in Room 1116 at the Manhattan Criminal Court. The judge seems to have alternated between boredom and rage throughout the trial, now three weeks old. He has repeatedly thrown caustic barbs at her lawyers and arbitrarily shut down many of the avenues of defense. Friday was no exception.

The silver-haired Zweibel curtly dismissed a request by defense lawyers Martin Stolar and Rebecca Heinegg for a motion to dismiss the case. The lawyers had attempted to argue that testimony from the officer who arrested McMillan violated Fifth Amendment restrictions against the use of comments made by a defendant at the time of arrest. But the judge, who has issued an unusual gag order that bars McMillan’s lawyers from speaking to the press, was visibly impatient, snapping, “This debate is going to end.” He then went on to uphold his earlier decision to heavily censor videos taken during the arrest, a decision Stolar said “is cutting the heart out of my ability to refute” the prosecution’s charge that McMillan faked a medical seizure in an attempt to avoid being arrested. “I’m totally handicapped,” Stolar lamented to Zweibel.

The trial of McMillan, 25, is one of the last criminal cases originating from the Occupy protest movement. It is also one of the most emblematic. The state, after the coordinated nationwide eradication of Occupy encampments, has relentlessly used the courts to harass and neutralize Occupy activists, often handing out long probation terms that come with activists’ forced acceptance of felony charges. A felony charge makes it harder to find employment and bars those with such convictions from serving on juries or working for law enforcement. Most important, the long probation terms effectively prohibit further activism.

The Occupy Wall Street movement was not only about battling back against the rise of a corporate oligarchy that has sabotaged our democracy and made war on the poor and the working class. It was also about our right to peaceful protest. The police in cities across the country have been used to short-circuit this right. I watched New York City police during the Occupy protests yank people from sidewalks into the street, where they would be arrested. I saw police routinely shove protesters and beat them with batons. I saw activists slammed against police cars. I saw groups of protesters suddenly herded like sheep to be confined within police barricades. I saw, and was caught up in, mass arrests in which those around me were handcuffed and then thrown violently onto the sidewalk. The police often blasted pepper spray into faces from inches away, temporarily blinding the victims. This violence, carried out against nonviolent protesters, came amid draconian city ordinances that effectively outlawed protest and banned demonstrators from public spaces. It was buttressed by heavy police infiltration and surveillance of the movement. When the press or activists attempted to document the abuse by police they often were assaulted or otherwise blocked from taking photographs or videos. The message the state delivered is clear: Do not dissent. And the McMillan trial is part of the process.

McMillan, who spent part of her childhood living in a trailer park in rural Texas and who now is a graduate student at The New School for Social Research in New York, found herself with several hundred other activists at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan in March 2012 to mark the six-month anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street. The city, fearing the re-establishment of an encampment, deployed large numbers of police officers to clear the park just before midnight of that March 17. The police, heavily shielded, stormed into the gathering in fast-moving lines. Activists were shoved, hit, knocked to the ground. Some ran for safety. More than 100 people were arrested on the anniversary. After the violence, numerous activists would call the police aggression perhaps the worst experienced by the Occupy movement. In the mayhem McMillan—whose bruises were photographed and subsequently were displayed to Amy Goodman on the “Democracy Now!” radio, television and Internet program—was manhandled by a police officer later identified as Grantley Bovell. [Click here to see McMillan interviewed on “Democracy Now!” She appears in the last 10 minutes of the program.]

Bovell, who was in plainclothes and who, according to McMillan, did not identify himself as a policeman, allegedly came up from behind and grabbed McMillan’s breast—a perverse form of assault by New York City police that other female activists, too, suffered during Occupy protests. McMillan’s elbow made contact with his face, just below the eye, in what she says appeared to be a reaction to the grope; she says she has no memory of the incident. By the end of the confrontation she was lying on the ground bruised, beaten and convulsing. She was taken to a hospital emergency room, where police handcuffed her to a bed.

Had McMillan not been an Occupy activist, the trial that came out of this beating would have been about her receiving restitution from New York City for police abuse. Instead, she is charged with felony assault in the second degree and facing up to seven years in prison. She is expected to take the witness stand this week.

McMillan’s journey from a rural Texas backwater to a courtroom in New York is a journey of political awakening. Her parents, divorced when she was small, had little money. At times she lived with her mother, who had jobs at a Dillard’s department store, as an accountant for a pool hall and later, after earning a degree, as a registered nurse doing shifts of 60 to 70 hours in hospitals and nursing homes. There were also painful stretches of unemployment. Her mother, from Mexico, was circumspect about revealing her ethnicity in the deeply white conservative community, one in which blacks and other minorities were not welcome. She never taught her son and daughter Spanish. As a girl McMillan saw her mother struggle with severe depression and, in one terrifying instance, taken to a hospital after she passed out from an overdose of prescription pills. For periods, McMillan, her brother and her mother survived on welfare, and they moved often; she attended 13 schools, including five high schools. Her father worked at a Domino’s Pizza shop, striving in vain to become a manager.

Racism was endemic in the area. There was a sign in the nearby town of Vidor, not far from the Louisiana state line, that read: “If you are dark get out before dark.” It had replaced an earlier sign that said: “Don’t let the sun set on your ass nigger.”

The families around the McMillans struggled with all the problems that come with poverty—alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic and sexual violence and despair. Cecily’s brother is serving a seven-year sentence for drug possession in Texas.

“I grew up around the violence of poverty,” she told me as she lit another cigarette while I interviewed her Thursday night in an apartment in Harlem. She smoked nearly nonstop during our conversation. “It was normative.”

Her parents worked hard to fit into the culture of rural Texas. She said she competed as a child in a beauty pageant called Tiny Miss Valentines of Texas. She was on a cheerleading team. She ran track.

“My parents tried,” McMillan said. “They wanted to give us everything. They wanted us to have a lifestyle we could be proud of. My parents, because we were … at times poor, were ashamed of who we were. I asked my mother to buy Tommy Hilfiger clothes at the Salvation Army and cut off the insignias and sew them onto my old clothes. I was afraid of being made fun of at school. My mother got up at 5 in the morning before work and made us pigs in a blanket, putting the little sausages into croissants. She wanted my brother and myself to be proud of her. She really did a lot with so very little.” 

McMillan spent most of her summers with her paternal grandparents in Atlanta. They opened her to another world. She attended a Spanish-language camp. She went to blues and jazz festivals. She attended a theater summer camp called Seven Stages that focused on cultural and political perspectives. When she was a teenager she wrote collective theater pieces, including one in which she wore the American flag as a burka and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a character dressed as Darth Vader walked onto the stage. “My father was horrified,” she said. “He walked out of the theater.”

As a 13-year-old she was in a play called “I Hate Anne Frank.” “It was about American sensationalism,” she said. “It asked how the entire experience of the Holocaust could be turned for many people into a girl’s positive narrative, a disgusting false optimism. It was not well received.”

Art, and especially theater, awakened her to the realities endured by others, from Muslims in the Middle East to the black underclass in the United States. And, unlike in the Texas towns where she grew up, she made black friends in Atlanta. She began to wonder about the lives of the African-Americans who lived near her in rural Texas. What was it like for them? How did they endure racism? Did black women suffer the way her mother suffered? She began to openly question and challenge the conventions and assumptions of the white community around her. She read extensively, falling in love with the work of Albert Camus.

“I would miss bus stops because I would be reading ‘The Stranger’ or ‘The Plague,’ ” she said. “Existentialism to me was beautiful. It said the world is shit. It said this is the lot humanity is given. But human beings have to try their best. They swim and they swim and they swim against the waves until they can’t swim any longer. You can choose to view these waves as personal attacks against you and give up, or you can swim. And Camus said you should not sell out for a lifeboat. These forces are impersonal. They are structural. I learned from Camus how to live and how to die with dignity.”

She attended Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., under a scholarship. After graduating, she worked as a student teacher in inner-city schools in Chicago. She joined the Young Democratic Socialists. She enrolled at The New School for Social Research in New York City in the fall of 2011 to write a master’s thesis on Jane Addams, Hull House and the settlement movement. The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations began in the city six days after she arrived at the school. She said that at first she was disappointed with the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park. She felt it lacked political maturity. She had participated in the political protests in Madison, Wis., in early 2011, and the solidarity of government workers, including police, that she saw there deeply influenced her feelings about activism. She came away strongly committed to nonviolence.

“Police officers sat down to occupy with us,” she said of the protests in Madison. “It was unprecedented. We were with teachers, the fire department, police and students. You walked around saying thank you to the police. You embraced police. [But then] I went to Occupy in New York and saw drum circles and people walking around naked. There was yoga. I thought, what is this? I thought for many protesters this was just some social experiment they would go back to their academic institutions and write about. Where I come from people are hungry. Women are getting raped. Fathers and stepfathers beat the shit out of children. People die. … Some people would rather not live.”

“At first I looked at the occupiers and thought they were so bourgeois,” she went on. “I thought they were trying to dress down their class by wearing all black. I was disgusted. But in the end I was wrong. I wasn’t meeting them where they were. These were kids, some of whom had been to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, [who] were the jewels of their family’s legacy. They were doing something radical. They had never been given the opportunity to have their voices heard, to have their own agency. They weren’t clowns like I first thought. They were really brave. We learned to have conversations. And that was beautiful. And these people are my friends today.”

She joined Occupy Wall Street’s Demands Working Group, which attempted to draw up a list of core demands that the movement could endorse. She continued with her academic work at The New School for Social Research. She worked part time. She was visiting her grandmother, who was terminally ill in Atlanta, in November 2011 when the police cleared out the Zuccotti Park encampment. When she returned to the New School she took part in the occupation of school buildings, but some occupiers trashed the property, leading to a bitter disagreement between her and other activists. Radical elements in the movement who supported the property destruction held a “shadow trial” and condemned her as a “bureaucratic provocateur.”

“I started putting together an Affinity Group after the New School occupation,” she said. “I realized there was a serious problem between anarchists and socialists and democratic socialists. I wanted, like Bayard Rustin, to bring everyone together. I wanted to repair the fractured left. I wanted to build coalitions.”

McMillan knows that the judge in her trial—who in one comment on the lawyers’ judge-rating website The Robing Room is called “a prosecutor with a robe”—has stacked the deck against her.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported that Bovell, the policeman who McMillan says beat her, has been investigated at least twice by the internal affairs department of the New York City Police Department. In one of these cases, Bovell and his partner were sued for allegedly using an unmarked police car to strike a 17-year-old fleeing on a dirt bike. The teenager said his nose was broken, two teeth were knocked out and his forehead was lacerated. The case was settled out of court for a substantial amount of money. The officer was also captured on a video that appeared to show him kicking a suspect on the floor of a Bronx grocery.

In addition, Bovell was involved in a ticket-fixing scandal in his Bronx precinct.

Austin Guest, 33, a graduate of Harvard University who was arrested at Zuccotti Park on the night McMillan was assaulted, is suing Bovell for allegedly intentionally banging his head on the internal stairs of an MTA bus that took him and other activists in for processing.

The judge has ruled that Bovell’s involvement in the cases stemming from the chasing of the youth on the dirt bike and the Guest arrest cannot be presented as evidence in the McMillan case.

The corporate state, which has proved utterly incapable of addressing the grievances and injustices endured by the underclass, is extremely nervous about the mass movements that have swept the country in recent years. And if protests erupt again—as I think they will—the state hopes it will have neutralized much of the potential leadership. Being an activist in peaceful mass protest is the only real “crime” McMillan has committed. 

“Everyone should come and sit through this trial to see the facade that we call democracy,” she said. “The resources one needs to even remotely have a chance in this system are beyond most people. Thank God I went to college and graduate school. Thank God Marty and Rebecca are my lawyers. Thank God I am an organizer and have some agency. I wait in line every day to go to court. I read above my head the words that read something like ‘Justice Is the Foundation of Democracy.’ And I wonder if this is ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ People of color, people who are poor, the people where I come from, do not have a chance for justice. Those people have no choice but to plea out. They can never win in court. I can fight it. This makes me a very privileged person. It is disgusting to think that this is what our democracy has come to. I am heartbreakingly sad for our country.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
April 27, 2014

The NDAA: What They Don’t Want You to Know

Lily Dane

Activist Post


The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Sections 1021 and 1022, authorizes the indefinite military detention, without charge or trial, of any person, including an American citizen, and applies the “Law of War,” to U.S. soil, making the United States legally a battlefield.People Against the NDAA (PANDA) was founded by Dan Johnson in January 2012. Johnson is a remarkable young man – he’s only 20 years old, and is already a nationally known writer and speaker.

PANDA is the largest organization of its kind in the world, and has worked on over 18 pieces of state and local anti-NDAA legislation.

The PANDA Mission Statement, from the organization’s website:

Our Mission is to nonviolently block, strike down, repeal, stop, void and fight the indefinite detention provisions, Sections 1021 and 1022, of the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year of 2012, to fight for American civil liberties, to combat laws restricting liberty in the interest of National Security, to support current government officials that are doing so and to engage a younger generation in the politics of the United States so this cannot happen again.

Johnson spoke at the Freedom Forum in Santa Cruz, CA on March 19, 2014, where he broke down the law and discussed its impacts on citizens:

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Published on Friday, April 25, 2014 by Common Dreams

Safety Failures Pervasive at Site of Mysterious Nuclear Leak

U.S. government’s own report faults declining safety culture for release 

of radiation at troubled New Mexico dump

– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

The airborne radiation leak at a federally-owned New Mexico nuclear waste dump that “was never supposed to leak” was caused by poor management, a dismal safety culture, and structural failures, according to the U.S. government’s own investigation released Thursday.

The 302-page report (pdf) from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Accident Investigation Board finds that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico was plagued by a lack of “rigorous” internal safety measures by Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that operates the facility.

Furthermore, the report charges, the NWP and the Carlsbad Field Office of the Department of Energy “have allowed the safety culture at the WIPP project to deteriorate, and as a result workers “do not feel comfortable” speaking up about and documenting problems and dangers. “Questioning attitudes are not welcomed by management and many issues and hazards do not appear to be readily recognized by site personnel.”

Investigators acknowledge they still do not know the cause of the leak that started February 14th and sent radioactive particles into the air, exposing at least 21 workers to radiation and alarming nearby residents. The release of radiation followed an underground fire on February 5th that forced the evacuation of the facility and sent six workers to the hospital with smoke inhalation-related injuries.

Don Hancock, Director of the Nuclear Waste Program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, told Common Dreams that though the report is damaging for the DOE and others, it fails to satisfactorily answer several key questions.

“They don’t explain, for example, how much the contractor is being paid,” said Hancock. “And they don’t discuss why the contractor was hired if they can’t do the job and why we the tax payers are paying them to do such a poor job.”

In addition, the report indicates that the radioactive leak was short-lived without adequate evidece to back up that claim, charges Hancock.

“Why didn’t they provide more detail about how the 21 workers were contaminated?” he added, referring to charges that workers were sent back to the site with inadequate protections after the leak was known to have occurred. “DOE bureaucrats have stated that workers’ exposure levels were safe, but there are no doctors who specialize in treating people with internal radiation exposure who have spoken publicly on the subject.”

The only deep-earth dump for radioactive waste in the U.S., WIPP remains closed, leaving radioactive waste across the country stranded, including 19 radioactive shipments that are currently being stored above-ground at the waste handling building at the WIPP facility.

“The report is filled with deficiencies,” said Hancock. “And it’s not news that there are major contractor and management problems, oversight problems, and a bad safety culture. People have been saying that for a long time.”

***

Nuclear Energy Reactors: U.S. to Turn Ukraine into a “Second Chernobyl”?  The Role of Westinghouse

In-depth Report: 

The date of April 26, 2014 marks the 28th anniversary of the catastrophic explosion of the 4th reactor at the Chernobyl power plant. This is the time when alarming news is coming to evoke concern over the future of Ukraine’s nuclear industry.

The use of US-produced fuel for Soviet reactors is not compatible with their design and violates the security requirements. It could lead to disasters comparable with what happened in Chernobyl. The International Union of Veterans of Nuclear Energy and Industry (IUVNEI) issued the following statement on April 25,

Nuclear fuel produced by the US firm Westinghouse does not meet the technical requirements of Soviet-era reactors, and using it could cause an accident on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster, which took place on the 26th April 1986.”

The IUVNEI brings together more than 15,000 nuclear industry veterans from Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland, the Czech Republic, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. It was founded in 2010 and headquartered in Moscow.

The Ukrainian state enterprise Energoatom and the Westinghouse Company previously agreed to extend the contract for the supply of US nuclear fuel for Ukrainian nuclear power plants until 2020.

Two years ago, there was a near-miss in Ukrainewhen TVS-W with damaged distancing armatures risked substantial uncontrolled releases of dangerous radiation. Only by a miracle was there no disaster at the South Ukrainian nuclear power plant.   But it did not prevent the signing of the agreement. A Czech nuclear power plant faced depressurization of the fuel elements produced by Westinghouse in 2006, followed by the Czech government abandoning the company as a fuel supplier. According to Yuri Nedashkovsky, the president of the country’s state-owned nuclear utility Energoatom, on April 23, 2014 the Ukraine’s interim government ordered   to allocate 45, 2 hectares of land for the construction of a nuclear waste storage site within the depopulated exclusion area around the plant of Chernobyl between villages Staraya Krasnitsa, Buryakovka, Chistogalovka and Stechanka in Kiev Region (the Central Spent Fuel Storage Project for Ukraine’s VVER reactors). The fuel is to come from Khmelnitsky, Rovno and South Ukraine nuclear power plants.

At present used fuel is mostly transported to new dry-storage facility at the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Factory in the Krasnoyarsk region and storage and reprocessing plant Mayak in the Chelyabinsk region, the both facilities are situated on the territory of Russian Federation.

In 2003 Ukraine started to look for alternatives to the Russian storages. In December 2005, Energoatom signed a 127, 75 million euro agreement with the US-based Holtec International to implement the Central Spent Fuel Storage Project for Ukraine’s VVER reactors. Holtec’s work involved design, licensing, construction, commissioning of the facility, and the supply of transport and vertical ventilated dry storage systems for used VVER nuclear fuel. By the end of 2011 Holtec International had to close its office in Kiev  as it had come under harsh criticism worldwide. It is widely believed that the company has lost licenses in several countries because of poor quality of its containers resulting in radiation leaks. Westinghouse and Holtec are members of U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC).

Morgan Williams, President/CEO of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, works in Ukraine since the 1990s said at the ceremony devoted to  Westinghouse Electric Company and Holtec International signing contracts with Ukraine in 2008:

Today is one of the most important days since Ukraine’s independence as the efforts of these two internationally known companies will go a long way to assuring that Ukraine has greater energy independence. This is made more important by the fact that for Ukraine, energy and political independence are closely interdependent. I join all of the USUBC members in toasting the success of these two great member companies, as we all work to assist Ukraine on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration and a strong democratic, private market driven nationhood.”

Morgan Williams is known as a lobbyist representing the interests of Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil in Ukraine. He has close ties with Freedom House involved in staging “color revolutions” in Eurasia, North Africa and Latin America.

One more interesting detail is to be mentioned here.  Some time ago it was reported that according to covert agreements reached between the Ukraine’s interim government and its European partners, the nuclear waste coming from the EU member states will be stored in Ukraine. 

Being in violation of law the deal is kept secret.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Hollywood Producer Claims Boston Bombing Was a “False Flag Attack”

Global Research, April 27, 2014
Region: 
Theme: 

Crisis actors, smoke bombs, fake blood and literal “smoke and mirrors” were all part of what was the false flag terrorist attack called the Boston Marathon Bombing. To anyone who saw the pictures and footage of fake blood, make- up artists and smiling “victims”. It was obvious that something was not right. For those involved in filmmaking and in the know the discrepancies were obvious. We spoke to famous Hollywood filmmaker, producer and director Nathan Folks about why he is certain the Boston Marathon Bombing was a false flag terrorist attack.

Hello, this is John Robles. I’m speaking with Mr. Nathan Folks, he is a well known US based film and TV director and producer.

Robles: Hello Sir.

Folks: Hi, how are you?

Robles: I’m very well. How are you?

Folks: Very good.

Robles: That’s nice to hear especially after everything you have been through. Now your story is going way-back. It started with the Boston Bombing. If you can tell our listeners a little bit about what you know about that “event” and what has happened to you since.

Folks: Back in 2013 I was watching the events unfold and as a producer, you can pinpoint very specific things that didn’t seem right. And I started to realize that we are watching yet another false flag event unfold. And as I started putting the pieces together I realized that we are up against an environment that is trying to create a fear factor in the media. And the fear factor is to keep us scared and to keep us in fear as long as they can.

And the events that I know to be true, including the “Boston hero” who was a person in my last film, “The prosecution of an American president” and his wife, I started to recognize that this was not an event that was at all 100% true.

Robles: What about this Boston hero? What role did he play?

Folks: He is actually a father that had lost a son in the Iraq War and he was part of our film and a part of the movement, you know, of exposing the truth about Iraq and talking about the things that the Bush Administration did during those years of his administration.

And I was blown away at the fact that he was essentially being used to act in this fake environment, this hyper-reality scene of a terrorism that never happened.

Robles: Now, can you tell us three things here if you could. You used the term “Hyper-Reality” what is that and how is it used? And what is a “Crisis Actor”? Many people may still not know what that is. And if you could, detail for the listeners, some of the things that you saw as far as screens being put up as for the false stages being set up where things were filmed and stuff?

Folks: I will start up by saying that if there was an injury or a death in the event that unfolded my heart goes out to those families. But from the people that I know that were involved, from the people that were in the scenes that we call Hyper-Reality Filmmaking, which is a very common thing you do in the military.

It’s where filmmakers, or people, create a hyper-reality scene so that the military can be well-adjusted to a real scene in Iraq or any other kind of war zone.

This is where these people are actually able to see and feel and help what they think is a real injured person whereas it is really just an amputee that is playing as a crisis actor, and (in this case) a crisis actor being someone that had lost their limbs but a makeup artist has been able to re-enact a bloody scene with “no leg blown off” and this hyper reality scene, so that when we are now on the ground, they actually see and feel like they are in a war zone.

And I’m watching this unfold on the streets of Boston and thinking, one: how were they able to get away with that? And two: watching the edits and the supposedly live television broadcasting we were seeing, it wasn’t “live” at all, it was edited.

Robles: How you know? What did you see? What were the clues you saw?

Folks: Well, there were a lot of things. In live footage you don’t see cuts. You know, cutting from one scene to another and in live footage you don’t have, especially now, this wasn’t in 2013 HD technology, this was in old technology from 2002, because it is grainer and you can’t see the edits as well.

As a filmmaker that what I would do if I was trying to reenact something like that and…

Robles: I’m sorry. Can you be more specific? I didn’t quite follow that. So it was made using old technology?

Folks: It’s using an older technology that is grainer. So you can’t see the very true HD quality and you are watching… If you look back at any old footage from early 2000 or even the 1990s, it is very grainy and when you are watching it on a new technology television with latest plasma and HD and any kind of new technology you can see that it was edited.

Robles: So television stations at that time, they were using modern technology?

Folks: They were definitely using modern technology last year. It’s just when you see pictures from 2013 that were in HD and then you look at clips and cuts of the footage from television, it is very obvious that it was used on purpose.

Robles: Can you tell us a little bit about some of the scenes. I’m sure a lot of people who were interested in what really happened, they saw some of the pictures, for example: the amputee with sticks, apparently sticking out of his legs or something, and blood that looked like paint, I mean, I have seen blood, I worked in a hospital, I know what blood looks like, it’s dark, it’s brownish red and this was this bright red paint. Can you tell us about that?

Folks: I think even more of an obvious situation is that: you get your legs blown off you are not going to be out in front of millions of people celebrating Boston at a hockey game or any type of arena. I think the emotional impact of losing your legs would probably keep you out of the public eye for at least a year. And that was the biggest obvious example to me, but as far as anyone that has been in the paramedics or nursing would know, that if you blow your legs off, you are not supposed to moved.

If someone’s falls here on Wilshire, just falls down, they tell you not to move, they are not supposed to move them. They could have broken a bone or a neck; their spine could be dislocated. You don’t move them and you certainly don’t put them in a wheelchair and run them down the road.

And it is just taking this to a whole different comical level that the fact that they think we all buy this, and that we are all going to sit here and watch it happen over and over again, you know, they have another thing coming. That’s why I joined forces with the Worldwide Wave of Action because you know; the truth has to come out. And people are not going to sit here and watch them make a mockery of ourselves.

Everybody around the world knows Boston Bombing was a joke; everyone in the US has been fed lies and lies after lies and it started in 9-11 and it hasn’t stopped.

Robles: Can you tell us… you sent me some pictures of these screens that you could actually see the road like “moving up”, it was like a mirror or something. Can you tell us about those?

Folks: You mean as far as the 3D… the Green Screen that they used at the Boston Bombing?

Robles: Yeah, can you detail all that?

Folks: From what I understand, they… it looks to me like they used a second street in order to re-enact the scene, over and over, to get it right and by using Green Screen they were able to show the buildings that were actually on Boylston Street and when you use a Green Screen it is a lot like Titanic. In the movie Titanic in 1997 we are watching the film and we are watching this boat sink and we are watching the water fill into the boat and we see people falling off the boat. That is obviously not happening in real life, we are watching it on Green Screen. They are putting a digital layer behind the screen of real action people. And we are watching a boat sink in the background and that is what they did in this example.

They just did it on television. We are watching green screen on television to re-enact a street scene that happened for real, but just a smoke bomb but when they re-enacted the people that were hurt they had to add the blood and the amputees and to put one the makeup.

You can see the person putting makeup on these people the entire scene; I call her “The Woman in Pink”. She has literally got a makeup bag and she is going to each victim, she is not helping them! She is putting make up on them!

So I’m sorry, I’m not fooled and I’m not going to let everyone else be fooled. Someone has to speak out against it. And they can follow me, they can do whatever they want but at the end of the day the truth has to come out some time. They can’t get away with it anymore.

Robles: Now please tell us, you have been persecuted, you have been through hell, I can’t think of any other way to put it. If I can tell our listeners: you contacted me right after it happened and after that a lot of terrible things started happening to you. Can you tell us some of those things?

Folks: Well, obviously, you can’t prove anything because I was very sick. I have never been sick in my life, I have never been in the hospital, but in the days after this event and weeks after this event and me talking about it, I was in the hospital for a total of 22 days over the course of three months.

And they really couldn’t determine what it was and I couldn’t hold water, I couldn’t hold food, it was some type of poison.

I can’t say for sure that I was poisoned by someone but I can say that I had some type of poison that nearly killed me.

And it took me good 3 to 6 months to kind of rehabilitate and get back on my feet and I figured if they are trying to scare me off or they are trying to keep me down from speaking: then it was a good try but it didn’t work.

Robles: Could you tell us what has happened to some other people? There was one guy, he wrote an article, you said, questioning the reality of the Boston Bombing Marathon. And you told me about some other people who had gotten sick as well.

Folks: Yeah, there is a gentlemen that runs a website called “Natural News” and he was coming out with very similar examples that I was during that time. And just now finding out that they wrote an article about how he has gotten sick from the food, he talks about. And they took his article down and re-wrote it in the third person.

And I don’t know if he is even able to speak, but I do know that after finding some of these examples of people that were coming out at same time that I was, that they were sick and poisoned as well, makes me realize that something is going on.

Robles: When you were in the hospital you also told me some other people close to you… (Can you talk about that?) that there were some other people you knew that got sick.

Folks: Yeah, I don’t think I can go into any detail but there were several other people that had gotten sick, and that seems to be part of this coming out. Anyone that has come out about this, got sick or disappeared.

Robles: How many people have disappeared, since then?

Folks: Well, I can say that everybody that reacted to this Boston bombing, the millions and millions of people that came out on the websites, came out about the scene and about the situation, essentially were silenced because there wasn’t a word about it this year. And that just gives me more of a comforting notion that it has been silenced for someone who has gone out and done something to the people that did come out about it…

Robles: You said that Internet before we started, you said that your Internet shut down in the US, it is on lockdown or something…

Folks: I mean strange things like in one day I have a Verizon Wireless Internet and in one day over 200 GB was taken from my service, ran up 35 hundred dollar bill in a 24-hour period. And then when you contact Verizon saying that it is obviously not something that I did, they ignore me and say that I have to pay if I want my service back on. So not many people want to just pay $3,500 for no reason.

Obviously, I never turned my Internet back on. I have been working on different types of Internet on different phones but it was designed to create a situation that I would shutdown. It was a warning probably of some sort. It was so that I would stop speaking about things that I’m knowledgeable about.

Robles: You gave me a good example about Boston False Flag, if someone who did a search on Google. Can you tell us about this false bomb?

Folks: Yeah, it is just that nobody is speaking about the Boston bombing. There is nobody speaking about false flags. And in this country our web searches seem to be completely deleted. You know, during that time I downloaded everything I knew and everything I saw and I have it on hard drive and the fact that all of that is now gone and I have them on hard drive.

Robles: Everything is gone?

Folks: Somebody is trying to take it away, make it disappear. It was very bad; whoever was in charge of the Boston Bombing Campaign did a very lousy job. They need to consult with some real Hollywood producers if they are going to do anything like that again and maybe make sure that they don’t fool the nation in their process because this is absurd.

Robles: They are not very creative in doing the same thing again and again and again.

Folks: They keep getting away with it, they are getting used to be able to get with it and they are getting sloppy and eventually and as this Worldwide Wave of Action is able to expose the truth more and more, I think we are going to stop this evil that is now taking over the US and is trying to keep people in fear and using fear mongering techniques on our media.

CNN and FOX and all these media sources are not telling the truth anymore. They are more interested in talking more about artists like Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan going to jail than potential war in Crimea.

I mean, this is, don’t even get me starting on that because I think we all know who is behind the taunting of that situation.

So it is just becoming obvious and even though people are not speaking about it because they are scared off or because they are scared to make a name and come out and talk about it.

This is our time to re-live the 60s, this is my generation’s time to stand up and say “No more!”

And we are not going to sit here and be poisoned and be lied to and listen to this “essentially crap” that they are feeding us in our media, this is not going to happen anymore. We have to stand up and make a change.

This is John Robles, you were listening to an interview with Nathan Folks, he is a well-known US film and TV director and producer. He is also the organizer of the Worldwide Wave of Action. You can find the rest of this interview on our website voiceofrussia.com. Thank you very much for listening!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
 

The Biggest Secret About Banking Has Just Gone Mainstream

Banks Create Money Out of Thin Air … Conferring Enormous Windfall Profits 

At the Expense of the People

Global Research, April 28, 2014
Region: 

We’ve pointed out for 4 1/2 years that banks create money out of thin air. Specifically, it has now been conclusively proven that loans come first … and then deposits FOLLOW.This is the most important secret about modern banking … because it debunks one of the biggest myths preventing a strong economy, challenges one of the main pork barrel profit centers for big banks … andopens up incredible opportunities for a prosperous economy.This odd and counter-intuitive – but crucially important – truth has now gone mainstream …Specifically, the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf – one of the world’s most influential mainstream financial writers –  says that, since banks create money out of thin air, they should be stripped of this power, and limited to normal depository functions. Wolf indicates the centrality and importance of the issue with his subtitle:

The giant hole at the heart of our market economies needs to be plugged.

And Business Insider – the world’s most popular financial news blog – is currently running this as its top two front page stories:(Read the Business Insider stories here and here.)If we reclaimed the power to create credit from the too big to fail banks, we would all be much wealthier

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Agents of Destabilization in Venezuela: The Dirty Hand of the National Endowment for Democracy

Global Research, April 26, 2014

Anti-government protests in Venezuela that seek regime change have been led by several individuals and organizations with close ties to the US government. Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado- two of the public leaders behind the violent protests that started in February – have long histories as collaborators, grantees and agents of Washington. The National Endowment for Democracy “NED” and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have channeled multi-million dollar funding to Lopez’s political parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and Machado’s NGO Sumate and her electoral campaigns.

These Washington agencies have also filtered more than $14 million to opposition groups in Venezuela between 2013 and 2014, including funding for their political campaigns in 2013 and for the current anti-government protests in 2014. This continues the pattern of financing from the US government to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2001, when millions of dollars were given to organizations from so-called “civil society” to execute a coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. After their failure days later, USAID opened an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas to, together with the NED, inject more than $100 million in efforts to undermine the Chavez government and reinforce the opposition during the following 8 years.

At the beginning of 2011, after being publically exposed for its grave violations of Venezuelan law and sovereignty, the OTI closed its doors inVenezuela and USAID operations were transferred to its offices in the US. The flow of money to anti-government groups didn’t stop, despite the enactment by Venezuela’s National Assembly of the Law of Political Sovereignty and NationalSelf-Determinationat the end of 2010, which outright prohibits foreign funding of political groups in the country. US agencies and the Venezuelan groups that receive their money continue to violate the law with impunity. In the Obama Administration’s Foreign Operations Budgets, between $5-6 million have been included to fund opposition groups in Venezuela through USAID since 2012.

The NED, a “foundation” created by Congress in 1983 to essentially do the CIA’s work overtly, has been one of the principal financiers of destabilization in Venezuela
throughout the Chavez administration and now against President Maduro. According to NED’s 2013 annual report, the agency channeled more than $2.3 million to Venezuelan opposition groups and projects. Within that figure,  $1,787,300 went directly to anti-government groups within Venezuela, while another$590,000 was distributed to regional organizations that work with and fund the Venezuelan opposition.  More than $300,000 was directed towards efforts to develop a new generation of youth leaders to oppose Maduro’s government politically.

One of the groups funded by NED to specifically work with youth is FORMA (http://www.forma.org.ve), an organization led by Cesar Briceño and tied to Venezuelan banker Oscar Garcia Mendoza. Garcia Mendoza runs the Banco Venezolano de Credito, a Venezuelan bank that has served as the filter for the flow of dollars from NED and USAID to opposition groups in Venezuela, including Sumate, CEDICE, Sin Mordaza, Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones and FORMA, amongst others.

Another significant part of NED funds in Venezuela from 2013-2014 was given to groups and initiatives that work in media and run the campaign to discredit the government of President Maduro. Some of the more active media organizations outwardly opposed to Maduro and receiving NED funds include Espacio Publico, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), Sin Mordaza and GALI. Throughout the past year, an unprecedented media war has been waged against the Venezuelan government and President Maduro directly, which has intensified during the past few months of protests.

In direct violation of Venezuelan law, NED also funded the opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Table (MUD), via the US International Republican Institute (IRI), with $100,000 to “share lessons learned with [anti-government groups] in Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia…and allow for the adaption of the Venezuelan experience in these countries”.  Regarding this initiative, the NED 2013annual report specifically states its aim: “To develop the ability of political and civil society actors from Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia to work on national, issue-based agendas for their respective countries using lessons learned and best practices from successful Venezuelan counterparts.  The Institute will facilitate an exchange of experiences between the Venezuelan Democratic Unity Roundtable and counterparts in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Argentina. IRI will bring these actors together through a series of tailored activities that will allow for the adaptation of the Venezuelan experience in these countries.”

IRI has helped to build right-wing opposition parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and has worked with the anti-government coaltion in Venezuela since before the 2002 coup d’etat against Chavez. In fact, IRI’s president at that time, George Folsom, outwardly applauded the coup and celebrated IRI’s role in a pressrelease claiming, “The Institute has served as a bridge between the nation’s political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future…”

Detailed in a report published by the Spanish institute FRIDE in 2010, international agencies that fund the Venezuelan opposition violate currency control laws in order to get their dollars to the recipients. Also confirmed in the FRIDE report was the fact that the majority of international agencies, with the exception of the European Commission, are bringing in foreign money and changing it on the black market, in clear violation of Venezuelan law. In some cases, as the FRIDE analysis reports, the agencies open bank accounts abroad for the Venezuelan groups or they bring them the money in hard cash. The US Embassy in Caracas could also use the diplomatic pouch to bring large quantities of unaccounted dollars and euros into the country that are later handed over illegally to anti-government groups in Venezuela.

What is clear is that the US government continues to feed efforts to destabilize Venezuela in clear violation of law. Stronger legal measures  and enforcement may be necessary to ensure the sovereignty and defense of Venezuela’s democracy.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
26.04.2014, 03:13, Ann Fillmore <UUzul@aol.com>:
(My emphasis)
Excerpt:  “In 1981, the autism (ASD) rate in the United States was 1:10,000. In 2007, it was 1:150. In 2009, it was 1:100. In 2012, it was 1:88. In 2014, it is 1:68. At this rate of increase, by 2025 it will be 1:2, or 50 percent. For those of you tempted to think this is just greater awareness and expansion of the criteria for diagnosis, the CDC says that since the 2012 estimate of 1 in 88 children identified with ASD, the criteria used to diagnose, treat, and provide services have not changed, but the rate has increased another 30 percent.
Meanwhile, autism rates in Europe have remained virtually flat for the last decade. Recent estimates in European countries range from 1 in 5,000 in Germany to 1 in 700 in Portugal. So what are Americans doing to harm themselves and their children’s brains that Europeans aren’t, besides watching Fox News?
No one knows for sure, but one thing to consider is the massive increase in Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the concomitant upsurge in pesticide and herbicide use.
 
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Published on Saturday, April 26, 2014 by Deeplinks Blog

TPP Is Right Where We Want It:  Going Nowhere

 

President Obama is on a diplomatic tour of Asia this week and one of his top priorities is theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement that includes restrictive copyright enforcement measures that pose a huge threat to users’ rights and a free and open Internet. In particular, he’s seeking to resolve some major policy disagreements with Japan and Malaysia—the two countries that have maintained resistance against some provisions in the TPP involving agriculture and other commodities. Despite some reports of movement on some of the most controversial topics during meetings between Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Abe, it seems that the TPP is still effectively at a standstill.

As negotiations continue to be shrouded in secrecy, the Pacific trade deal faces mass opposition both inside and outside of the U.S., and reports say little progress has been made for many months. State leaders and trade delegates have held dozens of closed-door meetings to discuss possible trade-offs and concessions over various tariffs and regulations, including some of the most controversial copyright enforcement provisions in the Intellectual Property chapter. Based upon the leaked text published by Wikileaks in November, several countries are resisting the extreme U.S. proposals on Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Internet Service Provider (ISP) liability.

This pushback is great news, and it comes thanks in large part to users around the world contacting their lawmakers and asking them to question and oppose TPP’s secretive corporate-driven agenda. A new campaign this week called Stop the Secrecy collected users’ petition signatures and messages about the TPP from various public interest groups; the final tally came out to over 2.8 million actions that have been taken over the last two years. The campaigners are projecting their message to “stop the secrecy” on U.S. capitol buildings. The aim is to get lawmakers and trade delegates to realize that if the agreement progresses, thousands of these users will be ready to stop it again in its tracks.

Following massive blows to the Fast Track bill introduced in January, many Senators are maintaining their stiff opposition against handing over trade authority to the White House. Under Fast Track, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, lawmakers would be limited to an up-or-down vote, and shirk their responsibility to hold proper hearings on its provisions.Republican Senator Roger Wicker has openly stated that he “couldn’t be less optimistic”about any progress being achieved during Obama’s trip to Asia. In an op-ed published this week in the LA Times, three Democratic Representatives reiterated their strong criticism of the TPP, advising that no one should “blindly endorse” this agreement. In November, the New York Times had done precisely that, but they too have suddenly changed their tune—publishing an editorial this week that expressed their heavy doubts over TPP’s objectives.They correctly questioned the administration’s secrecy over the negotiations and wrote that the “Obama administration also needs to do much more to counter the demands of corporations with those of the public interest.”

As long as trade agreements include digital copyright enforcement provisions however, it seems the content industry will do everything in its power to expand restrictive, anti-user policies. In March, we noticed that the Obama administration appointed a former SOPA lobbyist to join the team of negotiators working on the TPP. Now the revolving door continues to swing, yet again. The Motion Picture Association of America has hired Stan McCoy who, up until recently, had been the Chief Intellectual Property Negotiator for the TPP for five years. Despite the stalled TPP talks, the MPAA is forging ahead—still very interested in securing their copyright interests in international trade agreements.

While the President and his U.S. Trade Rep, Michael Froman, are determined to push the agreement forward, reports say TPP countries are not convinced that Obama will be able to rally the political support needed to pass a Fast Track bill. If it doesn’t grant Fast Track authority, Congress can pick apart and question every aspect of this sprawling trade agreement. TPP countries are unwilling to make potentially harmful concessions to the U.S. if there’s a chance the agreement would simply be unraveled by Congress once signed. The conclusion of TPP therefore seems increasingly contingent upon the Obama administration getting Fast Track authority, and so far Congress has shown no indication that they’re willing to give it to them.

Since Obama missed his self-imposed deadline to conclude the talks last December, there has not been a publicly stated timeframe for the agreement’s conclusion. This means the TPP could remain in this secretive, political limbo for months. On the other hand, the enhanced secrecy of the talks amongst trade delegates could lead to a situation where a concluded deal suddenly emerges, but that could only happen if the countries are somehow able to overcome some major controversial issues.

As others have pointed out, the Obama administration only has itself to blame for this mess. By listening to corporate demands above all else, it has alienated itself from its own political party, public interest groups, and most of all, the people whose interests it is supposedly meant to represent. Unless the U.S. trade rep radically changes its approach to this agreement—to make the negotiations truly transparent and incorporate substantive input from the public, for starters—it seems the President is going to be stuck defending a bad deal and a bad process. As long as the TPP remains a secretive process driven entirely by narrow interests, we’ll do everything we can to make sure it goes nowhere.

====================================================================================

Exclusive: Putin Halts All Talks With White House

By Josh Rogin

The Kremlin has ended high-level contact with the Obama administration, according to diplomatic officials and sources close to the Russian leadership. Continue

Obama Plays with Fire in Ukraine

By Sheldon Richman

How many American parents would proudly send their sons and daughters off to kill or be killed in Slovyansk or Donetsk? Continue

US ‘Pivots’, China Reaps Dividends

By Pepe Escobar

The pivoting to Cold War 2.0 proceeds unabated, as in Washington working hard to build an iron curtain between Berlin and Moscow. Continue

The Liberal Media: US Imperialism’s Biggest Cheerleaders 

By Ian Sinclair

A recent Win/Gallup International survey across 65 countries around the world found the country seen as representing the greatest threat to world peace was the US. Continue

Tony Blair ‘I Say Lies’
The Tony Blair 10-point Guide to Fighting Islamic Extremism

By Matt Carr

Hello World. I’m Tony Blair, the highest-paid speaker in the world and the Middle East ‘Peace Envoy’ and  I’d like to share my thoughts with you on how to combat the threat of ‘radical Islam’. Continue

In Israeli Politics, The Word “Peace” Has Become Poison

By Uri Avnery

For generations, the Zionist movement and the State of Israel denied the very existence of a Palestinian people. Continue

The Dirty Hand of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Venezuela

By Eva Golinger

The US government continues to feed efforts to destabilize Venezuela in clear violation of law.Continue

The Roots Of Worldwide Violence

By Alice Miller, Ph. D.

Children are beaten all over the world, especially during their first years, when their brain becomes structured. The damages caused by this practice are devastating, but unfortunately hardly noticed by society. Continue

Moving Closer To War

By Paul Craig Roberts

Are Europe’s politicians blackmailed, threatened, paid off with bags of money, or are they so accustomed to following Washington’s lead that they are unable to do anything else? Continue

Unite Against Imperialism!

By Andre Vltchek 

“Now that it is obvious that the West is ready and willing to destroy everything that stands in its way to the total domination of the planet, what can still be done?” Continue

There Is No Defence For Torture

By Emanuel E. Garcia

This is Empire, not democracy. Continue

Malcolm Fraser: Dangerous Allies

By Robert Manne

Malcolm Fraser today believes Australia should cut all military ties to the US. Continue

Average U.S. Citizens Have “Little Or No” Influence On Government Policy

By Carey L. Biron

Is the U.S. the democracy it claims to be? A study finds that monied interests and big business call most of the shots in U.S. public policy and the average citizen has very little say. Continue

America’s Surge Toward Oligarchy

By JP Sottile

With the rapid concentration of wealth in a few well-manicured hands and the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court declaring money to be speech, the American surge toward oligarchy has gained what looks like an unstoppable momentum. Continue

Wake Up, Internet — Time to Save Yourself

By Craig Aaron 

What if you had only three weeks before the Internet you know and love was about to disappear? Continue

Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia

By Robert Parry

Any propaganda war starts by planting stories that your target is getting rich, whether he is or isn’t, the latest move in demonizing Vladimir Putin. Continue

Four Ways The Ukraine Crisis Could Escalate To Use Of Nuclear Weapons

By Loren Thompson

If you know the history of the region, then it is easy to see why Moscow might fear aggression.Continue

Towards the End of U.S. Propaganda

By Thierry Meyssan

The Anglo-Saxon Empire is based on a century of propaganda. It managed to convince us that the United States is “the land of the free” and that it engaged in wars to defend its ideals.Continue

Demented Tony Blair Recites the Saudis’ Creed in his Latest Speech

By Patrick Cockburn

If Blair’s thoughts are used as a guide to action, then the main beneficiaries will be al-Qa’ida-type jihadist movements. Continue

The New York Times Declares the Peace Process Futile 

By Lawrence Davidson

Both the US government and the US “newspaper of record” refuse to act on their knowledge of Israel’s history of sabotage. Continue

Prophecy Delivered!
Martin Luther King Jr. & The Death of Democracy

By Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

An enslaving disposition corrupted the United States before it matured. Its spiritual death was foretold, but the nation refused to hear. Continue

Palestinians to Pursue Bid to Join 60 International Bodies

By AFP and Elhanan Miller

PLO also now rejects any West Bank land swaps with Israel. Continue

Hamas and the Tyranny of Labels

By Paul Pillar

The birth of the state of Israel included much terrorism, perpetrated by men who went on to become top leaders of Israel. Continue

“Is Israel And It’s US Lobby Above The Law?”

By Grant F Smith

“How Does the Israel Lobby Influence Congress” Continue

The Biology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Video

Gilad Atzmon Goes Where Few Dare To Thread. Continue

In Case You Missed It
 The Zionist Plan for the Middle East

Translated and edited by Israel Shahak

The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Continue

The Road From Abu Ghraib
A Torture Story Without a Hero or an Ending


By Karen J. Greenberg

It’s mind-boggling. Torture is still up for grabs in America. Continue

The Crime of Peaceful Protest

By Chris Hedges

The corporate state, which has proved utterly incapable of addressing the grievances and injustices endured by the underclass, is extremely nervous about the mass movements that have swept the country in recent years. Continue

 
***

April 28, 2014

  • Morocco Achieves QEG Resonance – It’s an important step. Next we look forward to the 10 kW output and overunity measurements. (Free Energy Blog; April 28, 2014)

April 27, 2014

April 26, 2014

  • FeaturedNews > This Week in Free Energy™ >
    This Week in Free Energy™: April 26, 2014 – Solar Hydrogen Trends interview • H-Cat amp meter vindication • Aesop Institute’s (Solar) Air-Powered Engine • Akula’s Resonace Research • Updates: YMNEE; OzzoG • Chukanov’s “Great Quantum Dragon” • Cano’s QMoGen • Crunk Demonstrates HHO + Natural Gas Set-up • Greer’s $100,000 STAR Award • Keshe announces Messiahship • Photoswitches • Velvet Gloves with GPI • Infowars updates (FreeEnergyNews)
  • FeaturedNuclear > HHO / LENR > H-Cat > Calorimetry > First Results >
    H-Cat amp meter vindication – Comparing the Fluke meter to a DC clamp-on meter and an analogue meter, I show that the Fluke does indeed measure DC current accurately once calibrated, even though the display says: “AC”; and that its readout is slightly higher than the DC clamp-on meter, which pushes our efficiency even higher, to 79%, well above the 64% max classical science predicts for electrolysis and catalysis. (PESN)

April 25, 2014

  • Peter Crunk Demonstrates His HHO + Natural Gas Set-up – Peter Crunk of HHO Gas Technology LLC contacted me on Skype and offered to show me something he was sure I’ve never seen before. He’s got a very impressive collection of Brown’s Gas equipment by Epoch. (Free Energy Blog; April 25, 2014)
====================================================================================
Published on Saturday, April 26, 2014 by Common Dreams

In One City, Columbus Day Now ‘Indigenous Peoples Day’

Minneapolis City Council passes resolution recognizing counter-holiday

– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

The Minneapolis City Council voted Friday to recognize Columbus Day as “Indigenous Peoples Day” after years of organizing by indigenous activists.

Hundreds of Native Americans filled the Minneapolis City Hall for Friday’s vote, Native News Online reports.

“City of Minneapolis recognizes the annexation of Dakota homelands for the building of our city, and knows Indigenous nations have lived upon this land since time immemorial and values the progress our society has accomplished through American Indian technology, thought, and culture,” reads the resolution.

The resolution does not do away with Columbus Day, but instead adds Indigenous Peoples Day as an official holiday. However, all official city communications will say “Indigenous Peoples Day,” not “Columbus Day.”

Since the late 1970s, indigenous people have organized to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, the resolution notes.

Columbus, who never set foot in what is now the United States, is widely credited with discovering the “New World,” despite the fact that indigenous people were already living there.

Columbus, who landed in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, exterminated and enslaved the Taíno people.

Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937, but Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota do not celebrate it. In the early 90s, Berkeley, California and Denver, Colorado began recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day.

====================================================================================
               HOTEL DEATH

It’s a place of celebration, where dying guests are promised freedom for their souls. And where one man, whose father is No. 14,544 in the ledger, finds himself torn between two worlds.

By Moni Basu, CNN
Photographs by Atul Loke/Panos Pictures for CNN

Varanasi, India

A 10-hour journey on Indian roads can be difficult and this one, fueled by faith, was more so.

Dinesh Chandra Mishra packed moth-eaten woolen blankets for the trip along with muslin and cotton quilts that had once been crisp and white. He also brought a single-burner kerosene stove, kitchen utensils and a rough estimation of clothes — though he could not possibly calculate how long he would be away from home.

He spent one-fourth of his monthly schoolteacher’s pension to hire the car that carried him and his belongings as well as his mother, sister and ailing father from their village of Gopalganj to Varanasi.

From the start, he was conflicted about the trip. It was not emotionally easy to bring his father to this city with only one purpose: to die.

Many years ago, Mishra’s grandfather had spent his final days at a “liberation house” for dying pilgrims in Varanasi. Now the destination was the same — Kashi Labh Mukti Bhavan, one of two remaining homes for those who arrive here at the eleventh hour, when death is imminent.

To take God’s name and die in Varanasi is to attain moksha, a term that can be interpreted in many ways but is generally understood by Hindus to mean freedom for the soul, a release from the constant cycle of rebirth.

Hindus believe a person builds up karma or a culmination of deeds during their lifetime. Karma can be good or bad, and it affects future lives for Hindus. The sect of Hinduism to which Mishra belongs believes that dying a good death in Varanasi forgives bad karma. Even a murderer can achieve moksha here.

Mishra, 63, had also accompanied his grandmother to Mukti Bhavan and stayed a month and a half. She grew restless and begged him to take her home. So he did. She died three days later. Mishra lived with the guilt of denying her salvation.

Now it was his father’s desire — as well as his entire clan’s — that the 83-year-old take his last breath in Varanasi, known in ancient times as Kashi, the most sacred place for devout Hindus. If he failed his father, as he had his grandmother, Mishra could not live with himself.

Salvation was the hope that kept Mishra going in his arduous journey. It was a hope he’d held all his spartan and sometimes inhospitable life but one that he felt more fervent now than ever. Still, it was not an easy decision to travel to Varanasi.

He’d left at home his wife, his only daughter and a situation of utmost urgency, one that required his attention. If he did not return home soon, he might mar forever the course of his daughter’s life.

Mishra arrived in Varanasi balancing life and death.

I had never been to the homes for the dying here. But having grown up in a Hindu household, I understood the lure of Varanasi, believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited place on the planet, as ancient as Babylon.

The city is intense and in-your-face spiritual. Hindu holy men with vermilion and saffron smeared on their foreheads wander labyrinthine lanes. Oil lamps, called diyas, burn day and night, and the sounds of brass bells and mantras, or incantations, reverberate far past the grounds of Varanasi’s 3,600 temples.

Believers and tourists alike, from the world over, want to touch the soil here and bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganga, as the Ganges River is known in Hindi, in an act of purification.

Varanasi has always been known as the city of light. But a more appropriate moniker might be the city of death.

The end of life here is stark and out in the open, for all to see. Bodies blanketed by white shrouds and orange marigolds are brought to the ghats, the broad steps leading down to the Ganga. Funeral pyres, especially at Manikarnika Ghat, the most sacred of cremation places, burn nonstop, melting human flesh on piles of mango wood. Sometimes, parts of bodies remain after the flames go out; stray dogs surround the smoldering embers. Those smells and sights reminded me of my time covering the war in Iraq.

Many of the city’s residents make a living from death. They include the Doms, the untouchable caste of Hindus who work at the cremation sites as well as the astrologers and priests who gather at the river. Part of the fascination for visitors, especially foreigners, is to bear witness to the process of dying.

The man who acted as my guide through Varanasi’s assault on the senses knows his hometown better than most. I found Nandan Upadhyay through a blog he writes called “Groovy Ganges.” He understands the magnetic draw, the cosmic energy swirling about the city. But he is always keenly aware of Varanasi’s 21st-century woes of poverty, pollution and overpopulation. I felt certain I was in good hands though I had no way of knowing how death would reshape our acquaintance.

Upadhyay hails from a traditional Hindu family from the high caste of priests. I considered myself just a step  beyond “Hinduism for Dummies”; I saw Upadhyay on textbook level.

For seven years, he has devoted himself to building a business that takes foreigners on walking tours of his  hometown. And out of entrepreneurial necessity, he perfected his spiel on the Hindu rituals of death.

He knows the numbers that draw gasps: 32,000 bodies are burned at Manikarnika Ghat every year. And he recites all the rules of death that are specified in ancient texts. But he told me he remains highly skeptical.

He didn’t care to have a priest chant prayers in Sanskrit while he bathed in the Ganges, in waters sullied in recent years by industrial waste, sewage and slaughterhouses. “How can this water be pure?” he asked. He took pride in joining other Indians who defiantly pledged not to bathe in the holy river again until the government did something to clean it up.

Not long before I met Upadhyay, one of his close friends lost his father. Upadhyay went to the funeral and hugged the grieving man, despite warnings that touching anyone at a cremation ground is to become impure yourself. Others who touched Upadhyay that day had to bathe and change clothes before entering their homes.

Upadhyay thought it silly that these things mattered more than comforting a dear friend. Not that he wasn’t  spiritual. He was. He just didn’t believe in blind devotion to practices that seemed misguided to him.

That’s why he could not understand Hindus who believed in Varanasi’s powers of salvation. He confessed he would never take the trouble to bring his own father to Mukti Bhavan to die. The practice seemed so morbid.

I understood his reaction. I’d been raised in an extended family that embraced Hinduism, though my father shunned religious practices in general. He even made me promise that no rituals would be performed after his death.

What mattered in life, my father said, was karma. Be a good person, he told me. The conversation always stopped there, with the ending of life. There was no discussion of what the consequences might be after death.

That would change for me in Varanasi as Upadhyay and I made our way to a home for the dying. Over a few days at Mukti Bhavan, we both began to see death in a new light. We were surrounded by people who spoke of dying with nonchalance. We spent our waking hours in a place that lacked warmth and expressions of love or any of the other emotions we linked to the process of dying.

And yet, in that environment, death would suddenly become more intimate than either of us could have predicted.

Everyone in Varanasi seems to know where Mukti Bhavan is located, though there are no signs leading to it from Church Godowlia, the city’s busiest intersection, where a torrent of motorcycles, cars and cycle rickshaws stop for nothing and no one. Crossing the streets, I visualized my own death on occasion.

I expected Mukti Bhavan to be a clean, bright hygienic place, like a hospice in America. It wasn’t.

It sits on a narrow lane, next to a couple of shabby shops selling speakers and other audio equipment. The early 20th-century brick and plaster building must have belonged to a wealthy Varanasi family at one time. I tried to envision its past grandeur with marble floors in the outer rooms, high ceilings and an interior courtyard.

Today, its appearance is suitably sober and dark for a place of death. Only at the height of day does sunlight stream in through cracks in the shutters and illuminate the millions of microscopic dust particles in the air. At night, dim fluorescent bulbs provide a modicum of light — that is, when there is electricity from the city.

The house has 12 rooms, but the manager, 60-year-old Bhairavnath Shukla, has been known to set up beds for people in the corridors and courtyard. He has worked here for 43 years and rarely turns away a person who he believes is in need.

Shukla pondered a career in the army and tried his hand as an educator before he felt a calling to do God’s work in Varanasi. He’s spent a lifetime studying Hindu texts, and if you question him about salvation, be prepared to sit for a while. It’s like asking a preacher about the Ten Commandments and the answer is the entire book of Exodus.

Shukla’s guidance on whether a person is near death comes, he says gesturing, uparse, meaning from above. He sternly lets people know he is not running a charity for sick people (though Mukti Bhavan is funded by a charitable trust set up by one of India’s wealthy industrialist families). This isn’t a place where people can park themselves just because they have nowhere else to go.

People travel here from near and far to die. Shukla claims he has even had guests from England and Mauritius. But most are devotees of a sect of Hinduism from neighboring states who believe in the powers of this city. They arrive in Varanasi and either lack money or are rejected by established hotels and guesthouses that quickly realize their guests will check in but not live to settle the bill.

Shukla uses the front room in the house as office space, though he is rarely there by day. He is busy running a staff of priests, who live on the premises. He fingers his prayer beads all day long as he makes sure the priests tend to the small temple inside the house and the evening kirtan, a chanting of hymns accompanied by drums, bells and harmonium.

Near the doorway is a sign in Hindi listing house rules. The first says only people who believe in the idea of salvation in Kashi are allowed to stay here. Among the other rules: Only Hindus are allowed. People with contagious diseases will not be admitted. If you are caught having sex or engaging in “other sinful activities,” you will be asked to leave. Lodgings are free, but guests will be charged for electricity. Only 15 days of stay are permitted. After that, the manager will make a decision.

At night, Shukla sleeps on a small cot in the office — in case anyone shows up after dark. On the top shelf of a built-in bookcase he keeps piles of dust-laden scriptures, Ganga jal, or Ganges water, in plastic jugs and a ledger of everyone who has checked in.

It is a ghoulish list of all who perished here, something that might keep many awake at night. But not Shukla.

“If people were dying here,” he laughs, “this would be a haunted house, a house filled with ghosts. But they are not dying. They are gaining moksha.”

In the ledger, Mishra’s father, Girish, is No. 14,544. He has already been at Mukti Bhavan for nearly three weeks when I arrive. Shukla tells me he decided that Mishra’s father could remain beyond his 15 days. He felt certain death was at hand.

Upadhyay and I watch Mishra emerge every morning from Room No. 6 at the back of the house. The windows are tightly shut. Girish Mishra cannot stand the cold or any sunlight in his eyes. He lies motionless on a hard, wooden cot and rises only once a day to sip milk and swallow a few morsels of flatbread and vegetables.

Mishra positions himself in the front yard on a wobbly bench under the sun, trying desperately to shed the early chill of the day. It is February, and Varanasi still feels quite cold at night, though summer’s sizzle seems imminent at the height of the afternoon.

Before he retired, Mishra taught English for 30 years at schools at home in Bihar. He credits his position in life to his father’s hard work and support.

He likes to quote writers such as Alfred Tennyson and holds on to their lines as salves for stress. “Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt. And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith.”

He leans over and tells me: “I believe in faith. I believe in destiny. What is lotted cannot be blotted.”

He speaks surrounded by the buzz of routine activity, some of it so mundane that it is perplexing for a house of death — at least it seems that way to outsiders like me.

The priests undertake a lavish four-hour ritual every morning to undress the deities in the temple — Ram, Krishna and Hanuman, the monkey god — and bathe them in milk and water. They wash the brass offering plates and glasses and return everything to its rightful place. These acts are a way to express their devotion to God.

Shukla grabs a steel bucket, pours a drop or two of Ganga jal in it and takes his turn at a tube well to bathe. All those who work and live at Mukti Bhavan take morning baths out here in the open. That includes two teenage brothers, who have lived on the compound for the last decade, surrounded by death. They say their mother was frightened at first to live at the compound.

But then everyone got used to the sickly bodies, the soiled sheets. The screams of pain became background noise, like the constant horns of motorcycles and rickshaws we can hear outside the gate.

Late in the morning, the children of the Mukti Bhavan staffers head off to various schools in their uniforms. The priests keep busy fussing over a small garden and chasing wild monkeys off the trees and perimeter walls. From the outside, no one would know there are rooms here reserved for death.

The depth of Mishra’s predicament also is not apparent at first, but Upadhyay and I can see that even amid the constant happenings at Mukti Bhavan, he lives in his own world, lost in waiting for his father to die.

He consults the three priests on the premises. He saunters over to the wrought-iron gate, painted forest green and always kept chained and locked, though loosely enough to allow people to enter and exit.

He buys cauliflower and potatoes from the market for his sister to cook in their room. There’s no cafeteria or food services at Mukti Bhavan. Mishra knows the drill from his previous visit here with his grandmother; the families of the dying have to fend for themselves.

He ventures out to see astrologers on the ghats and prays at one of the nearby temples.

Shukla tries to calm Mishra.

“Don’t worry,” he tells him. “Your father will die soon.”

“What a strange thing to say,” I tell Upadhyay. It’s the very opposite of what he and I or anyone else I know would tell a person who is watching a loved one wither away.

But death is not to be mourned here, we learn. It is not even a word that is uttered much. More often, Shukla refers to death as mukti, or liberation. He and everyone else at Mukti Bhavan see death in Varanasi as a marriage of one’s soul with God.

And just like a wedding, it is an occasion for joy.

Joy is not a part of Mishra’s life at this moment. “I am facing a dilemma,” he announces.

The white stubble blanketing his face — he hasn’t shaved in days — looks like unevenly sprinkled confectioner’s sugar. He adjusts his glasses, though he’s oblivious to the film of fingerprints and dust, and begins to divulge why he is so troubled about his trip to Varanasi.

In custom with his culture, he feels obligated to get his daughter married. When he left his village for Varanasi, he abandoned crucial negotiations with the family of a young man he thought suitable. The deal, he feels, could easily fall through because of his absence.

He will always blame himself if, in the end, he fails to negotiate a new life for Bandana. As her father, he is responsible. But he also could not live with himself if his father missed out on dying within the boundaries of this hallowed city.

Mishra scans the political headlines of the day in a Hindi-language newspaper, occasionally glancing over at his sister, who is fastidiously hanging her freshly rinsed nylon saris to dry on a crowded clothesline.

“We will wait for a few days and then decide what to do,” he says, explaining how enormous a task it is to arrange a wedding.

Mishra wishes there was someone back home who could help him settle things for his daughter. He has little money, he says, and there are many people who owe him. They should step forward now to settle up their loans, he thinks, so he can send word to the prospective groom’s family that he has enough for a dowry.

Dowries were designed to transfer familial wealth to a daughter at the time of her marriage, but they essentially became forms of payment for a man to agree to marry a woman. The custom is outlawed but still prevails in many parts of the country.

Mishra made sure all three of his children finished school; many kids growing up in rural India don’t. He is proud his sons have good jobs now. It’s his daughter’s turn to stand on her own. The first step toward that for a woman in Mishra’s society is marriage.

The groom has to be handsome. He has to hold down a stable job, preferably working for the government. And he should not be an alcoholic. Too many men in his village, he says, drink heavily and then abuse their wives.

Family members have been to see a suitable boy. “That’s why it is urgent I return home,” he says.

I can hear the distress in his voice.

“He is in a difficult position,” Upadhyay agrees.

Shukla, the manager, has been listening intently to our conversation. He shrugs off Mishra’s problems and advises him to stay in Varanasi.

“You should give priority to your father,” he says. “He gave you birth. He has limited time left. There will be lots of time for other things.”

Upadhyay understands Shukla’s advice. He, too, feels enormously indebted to his father.

Upadhyay eloped with his wife when he was in the 12th grade. She was pregnant and gave birth to their son before they could marry. It was scandalous in India and even more so in Varanasi’s conservative circles. Some of Upadhyay’s relatives and friends shunned him.

“My life was controversial, but my father stood by me,” he says.

He helped Upadhyay get back on his feet. At 71, his father is considered older than someone that age might be in America, but at least he is in good health, his mind still sharp.

Upadhyay is thankful he still has plenty of time to think about his father’s mortality, to sort out his beliefs on  salvation for the soul.

For many days, the Mishras have been the only guests at Mukti Bhavan. But on this afternoon, Shukla gets word of another potential guest.

On the phone is a relative of an elderly woman who has been admitted to the Banaras Hindu University Hospital a short distance away. The family wants to bring her to Mukti Bhavan; doctors have informed them there is little left to be done.

The hospital is in Varanasi but outside the boundaries of ancient Kashi.

“You can go to heaven if you die there,” Shukla explains, citing Hindu texts that define a four-kilometer (about a 2.5-mile) zone outside Kashi as special. “But you will be reborn.”

That’s why many people choose to take the very sick out of the hospital and bring them here, he says.

He’s already turned away two families today. The patients did not seem on the verge of death to Shukla. He will wait to see the condition of the hospital patient before he says yes and adds her to his ledger.

While he waits, a steady stream of other people go in and out of the gate. Some wander in just to sit in the front yard, somewhat of an oasis in a city of hustle and bustle. Others have a more specific purpose.

A young, barefooted woman covers her head with her black scarf, or dupatta, and offers a prayer with Ganga jal in front of a banana tree, considered a symbol of the god Vishnu, the preserver and protector of the universe. Two Muslim men ask for alms for a pilgrimage. “In the name of Allah,” they say to Shukla and the Hindu priests.

Shukla takes out a 10-rupee note and slips it into the hands of one of the men. After they leave, he grumbles about how people will use any excuse to make a fast buck. “Emotional blackmail,” he says.

Just because this is a hospice, people think they can come in and ask for anything, he says. “Can you imagine? Even Muslims come to beg here.”

As the hours tick by, the expected guest from the hospital does not arrive. “Maybe,” Shukla says, “she has already left us.”

Then, as the afternoon continues its lazy crawl — waiting for death can become tedious — a white Mahindra SUV arrives at the gate.

At least seven men pour out of the car. In the back seat is a 105-year-old woman. Her relatives tell Shukla they drove her here from their village and that she has not eaten solid food in a month. By comparison, Mishra’s father looks good. Shukla inspects her and concludes she has at most three days to live.

A priest shows her family to Room No. 5, next door to the Mishras. They inspect the barren room with whitewashed walls and two cots. And accept.

Mua Kuvar Tiwari is guest No. 14,545.

She has never married. She has no children. Her nephews decided to bring her here from across the state border in Bihar when she stopped opening her eyes and they sensed the end was near.

“Her work on Earth is over,” says her grandnephew Arun Kumar Tiwari.

The Tiwaris quickly unpack the bedding they have brought and place the dying woman on a cot. They ask me to use the compass on my iPhone to make sure her feet are pointing north, in accordance with Vastu, or Indian feng shui.

Her nephew Jaishankar Prasad Tiwari says his aunt was on medication for congestion and joint pain but she has survived solely on water the last 15 days.

“It is very important to me that she dies here,” he says. “It means I have paid off my debt to her.”

He notices the sullen look on my face, my head bowed. “This is not a place for sadness for us,” he says, as though to comfort me.

“You don’t come here to get better. You come here to die. Even she feels happiness,” he says, pointing to his aunt.

I can see her in the dim light. Her legs are stiff and thinner than my arms. She is gasping for air.

Mishra pokes his head into his new neighbor’s room. Now there is another rogimarnewala, a sick person who is about to die, in the house. It comforts him to know there are other people here who understand.

The Tiwari family lights sandalwood incense by the ailing woman’s bed and keeps vigil sitting on the floor. Every hour, they force open her mouth and give her a few drops of Ganga jal. It is like the blood of Shiva — the god of destruction and purification — entering her body.

A priest comes by to chant prayers. He waves an earthen lamp filled with camphor, commonly used in Hindu worship ceremonies. The room fills with white smoke so thick that Upadhyay and I almost can’t see the group of a dozen Japanese tourists who have made their way into the courtyard.

They are on a Buddhist pilgrimage in India and have stopped here after hearing about Mukti Bhavan. They barge into the Tiwari family’s room, stare at the dying woman. Then they shuffle next door to Mishra’s room. Some even click their cameras.

Mishra’s sister is cleaning up after lunch. She dumps whatever biodegradable waste there is in a small plastic bucket in the courtyard. (Shukla insists it be fed to the cows outside.) She sizes up the strangers who are so intrigued by her father’s condition. She has never seen Japanese people before.

Upadhyay and I find the visit jarring. It’s almost as though death were on display at a museum. How is this not voyeurism? I ask.

One of the tourists, Takeo Fukikura, has brought his 8-year-old son with him and tells me I am off with my line of questioning.

“This is very heavy,” he tells me. “We are digesting it all.”

He says they mean well. They are interested in learning about how Hinduism explores the end of life in a frank way, how Hindus do not shy away from death. Nowhere has that been more apparent to them than here at Mukti Bhavan.

After the Japanese tourists leave, Shukla tells me he does not mind such interruptions. In fact, usually he gives visitors permission to explore Mukti Bhavan. His goal is to enlighten them.

“The people who visit here get a very different insight into death,” he says. “There are no injections, no medicine. Nothing from the modern world. This is death in its purest.”

With each passing day, Mishra seems more agitated, more distraught about his presence at Mukti Bhavan.

On Sunday, he is unable to do anything he has planned, not even take a walk down to the river to feed the fish, considered an auspicious act for Hindus. The only thing he can think of is his daughter’s wedding.

Mishra tells Shukla he plans to take a train back to his village, Gopalganj, perhaps as soon as the next night. Shukla does not approve and reminds him he will regret leaving his father’s side.

“It is a choice between starting a life and death,” Mishra says. “I cannot fail my daughter.”

He busies himself buying the supplies his sister and mother will need in his absence. Cough syrup for his father, vegetables, flour, rice. He adds money to a prepaid calling card for his mobile phone. He goes in and out of the gate. Sometimes he has a purpose and when he returns, it’s with something in his hands. Other times, he wanders the congested streets of Church Godowlia; the chaos of the city brings a strange sort of relief.

He calls a relative, a cousin who is younger, and asks him to check on his family every day. What will happen if there is an emergency? What will happen if his father dies?

It is in the midst of all this that Upadhyay’s Samsung Galaxy phone lights up. It’s his wife.

“Your father is ill,” she tells him, her nervousness apparent to him by the quiver in her voice. “I am not sure what’s wrong. Please come home.”

Not even a half-hour goes by before I learn that Upadhyay’s father suffered a massive heart attack and died.

His is not a death anyone expected. No one was prepared. No one was keeping vigil. Upadhyay’s biggest regret is that he did not make it home to see his father one last time.

At Mukti Bhavan, I break the news to Shukla.

“Moksha hua. Moksha hua,” he declares. Upadhyay’s father has attained moksha.

“Nandan should not cry,” he continues, describing life as being like a movie that plays out and when “The End” flashes, a new movie begins with a new set of actors.

What matters, he says, is one’s relationship with God, not with other people.

At this moment, I am not listening to Shukla’s philosophy anymore. I know how devastated Upadhyay must be to lose his father. Upadhyay is 31 and has never lived away from his parents. It is not unusual in India for sons to continue to live at home even after they are married.

These thoughts consume me the next morning at Harishchandra Ghat, the smaller of the two Varanasi cremation sites on the Ganges. I am not here for Mishra and his father, as I had expected to be, but for Upadhyay and his two brothers as they perform last rites for their father.

There is little grief on display. Upadhyay’s younger brother is the only one in tears.

They lift their father’s body — Hindus do not use coffins — onto a pyre of mango logs, the kind of wood prescribed for funerals in Hindu texts. A priest chants from Hindu scriptures and anoints the body with clarified butter. Upadhyay’s older brother has shaved his head and wears white muslin garments. He carries a torch and walks around his father’s body three times. Each time, he touches the fire to his father’s mouth.

I watch intently from the top steps of the ghat. There are no other women around. Funerals are a man’s task in Hinduism, and it is always the eldest son or grandson or closest male relative who lights the pyre.

When my father died, my brother was not in India, and the funeral responsibilities fell on me. I kept my promise to my father about not performing the rituals he despised, though I had no choice but to take his body to a crematorium near the Kalighat Kali temple in my hometown, Kolkata. But that facility operated through electric furnaces; it looked and smelled nothing like the funeral pyres in Varanasi.

I stood by my father’s body, limp on a bamboo bier on the ground, and waited for hours before his turn came. Two of my closest friends were with me when crematorium workers slid the body into a furnace. Uncovered. Unhindered. Undignified, I thought.

I collected some of his ashes and bone fragments and sprinkled them into a canal that flowed from a tributary of the Ganges. I watched the dusty remains of my father disappear into the dark, dense water. Two months later, my mother was cremated the same way.

I’d thought about losing my parents throughout the week as I listened to Shukla talk about dying. Human relationships, he told me, mean little at the end of one’s life. Part of gaining moksha and joining God, he said, is to let go of all earthly desires, including the attachments we have to loved ones.

The concept is difficult for me to grasp, and even more so as I watch Upadhyay and his brothers. The oldest lights a fire inside his father’s mouth for the last time, then the workers on the ghat set the entire pyre alight. It can take four or more hours for the flames to consume the body of an adult man.

I’d never thought much about rebirth or the possibility of moksha when my own father died. But I do now.

Upadhyay is still dressed in the striped button-down shirt, sweater vest and Levis he was wearing the day before. But he is barefoot, the silt and scum of the river staining his feet and jeans. I wonder if he will take a dip in the Ganga, as is required to cleanse oneself after a cremation.

This is what Mishra had hoped to do in Varanasi. He had gone to great lengths to ensure a funeral for his father on sacred ground. Instead, the man before me now did not expect to perform these acts anytime soon.

Death rituals helped Upadhyay make a living; they were not something he believed in. But things that had seemed like silly formalities suddenly took on new import.

At Mukti Bhavan, time is standing still for Mishra, who might have given anything to be in Upadhyay’s place. Mishra’s father is no worse than he was when he arrived in Varanasi. And Mishra’s daughter is no closer to a  wedding.

I’d watched him sit down with the priests every evening for hymns and prayers. But on the night after Upadhyay’s father died, Mishra is busy packing his clothes in a small black duffle bag for the trip home. The rusted zipper isn’t budging, and a friend uses candle wax to pry it loose. Mishra gives a last set of instructions to his sister.

“Don’t skimp on what he needs. Give him grapes. Give him milk. Make sure he drinks a half-kilogram of milk every day.”

Milk is the one thing that Mishra has not been able to buy in advance because there is no refrigeration at Mukti Bhavan. He tells his sister that Shukla’s staff has offered to go to the store every day.

“Do we have enough money for that?” she asks.

Mishra hands his sister a bundle of seven 100-rupee bills (about $11).

“If Babaji (father) asks to eat anything, buy it,” he says.

He had wanted his Babaji to die at Mukti Bhavan, but he cannot bear the thought of not seeing him again, of not being there at his funeral. Hindus are not taken to morgues; their bodies are not preserved. They are cremated hours after death.

Mishra rolls down the dingy quilt to uncover his father’s face.

“I’m going now, Babaji. I’m going back to the village,” he explains. “Please understand. I have to go back for Bandana.”

Mishra wipes tears from his eyes and flings his bag over his right shoulder. He slips through the front gate and disappears into the crowd outside, hoping to find his own salvation.

I’ve had years to think about the ending of life since my father’s death in 2001. I don’t know if there is such a thing as moksha, but I feel my father’s presence every day. My time at Mukti Bhavan and in Varanasi solidified my inclination to believe we all have souls.

Mua Kuvar Tiwari, the 105-year-old woman who checked into the room next to Mishra’s father, died a few hours after Mishra left for the train station to return home to his village in the state of Bihar. The men in her family cremated her at Manikarnika Ghat. They believe she attained moksha.

Dinesh Mishra returned to Mukti Bhavan a week later and was with his father, Girish, when he died on February 16. Mishra cremated him at Manikarnika Ghat and said his hopes were fulfilled. He is still searching for a groom for his daughter and does not yet have enough money for a dowry. “This year is not in my hand,” he says. “It’s in God’s hand.”

Nandan Upadhyay shaved his head on the 10th day of mourning. He refrained from commercial toothpaste and used one made from leaves of the Neem tree, believed to have healing qualities.

He bathed in the Ganges amid the waste and the ashes of the dead. He bowed his head in prayer and found comfort in the priest’s prayers in Sanskrit, even though he did not understand everything that was said.

When he finally returned to working as a tour guide, he could no longer talk in detail about death and cremation.

He said the time he spent with me at Mukti Bhavan helped him cope with his father’s sudden death. He took solace in Shukla’s words about celebrating the marriage of one’s soul with God. He even thought about asking Shukla to visit his mother in her time of grief.

“Who knows what is the truth?” he asked in a recent phone conversation. “I know very well these are very regional ideas. It is different here in Varanasi than it is in Europe or America.

“But at the same time, it was my father,” he said. “So why should I make that mistake?”

In a critical moment, the question marks faded for Upadhyay. He wanted to do everything possible for the soul of his father. Just in case.

====================================================================================
====================================================================================

                                    News Links, April 26-28, 2014

## Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##
Meltdown America: Chinese-Russian Attack on the Dollar
EIA: Oil declines hurting Mexico
Mexico’s fiscal health is in jeopardy because of a declining rate of oil production, an analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.
## Airline Death Spiral ##
Airline Fees gone wild
## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##
The creation of a real non dollar bloc which can make almost anything people want, and which has access to essentially all key resources from oil to rare minerals, metals and food is an existential threat to the hegemony of the West and its allies like Japan and Korea.
US, Philippines reach deal on troops
The United States and the Philippines have reached a 10-year pact that would allow a larger U.S. military presence in this Southeast Asian nation as it grapples with increasingly tense territorial disputes with China.
Rio chaos in countdown to kick-off
Gunfights and killings in shanty towns have escalated just weeks before the World Cup begins in Brazil
U.S. troops arrive in Lithuania amid Ukraine tensions

Slovenia’s government faces collapse

## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##

Dozens of protesters torched three banks and a government building in the southern Jordanian city of Maan, after police killed a resident during clashes, officials and witnesses said yesterday. Some 200 anti-government protesters were involved in the riots late Wednesday, the Public Security Department said.
## Energy/resources ##
Shale gas bust: New York state shale gas: Not so much
The stunning conclusion of the report is that at current prices–in the mid-$4 range per thousand cubic feet (mcf)–NONE of the natural gas trapped in the New York portion of the Marcellus can be profitably extracted.
Abu Dhabi edges closer to power shortage
Without the addition of generation capacity, the emirate will struggle to address growing power demand
Newfoundland faces ‘unacceptably high risk’ of future blackouts
Lack of generation capacity, equipment upkeep and training were factors as lights went out across Newfoundland last winter, says a new report flagging an “unacceptably high risk” of future blackouts.
U.S. electricity prices may be going up for good
Experts warn of a growing fragility as coal-fired plants are shut down, nuclear power is reduced and consumers switch to renewable energy.
I would like to remind everyone that landfill gas and waste-to-energy schemes depend on the mountains of waste generated by the industrial/consumer economy. — RF
Much to the chagrin of the United States, China has the innate ability to negotiate major energy deals in the midst of conflict. PetroChina’s  state-run parent company, China National Petroleum, or CNPC, was the first oil company to secure a contract in the Iraqi oil fields following the fall of Saddam Hussein, and today both it and CNOOC  are two of the most active oil companies there. With Russia and the West at a standstill over the recent events in Ukraine, it appears that CNPC is about to seal another energy coup.
Oil firms sweat ageing North Sea assets to stave off shutdowns
Smaller oil producers are teaming up with engineering and oil services companies in Britain’s North Sea to squeeze extra drops from ageing facilities before rising costs force them to close.
Oil firms’ answer to global calamity: Insurance
The crisis in Ukraine has provided a reminder of an an old story: The world is a dangerous and unstable place—and some of the most volatile places on earth are oil-producing areas where oil companies are compelled to drill.
China wants more Latin American oil, president to visit in July
China might be slowing economically but it still wants to buy more oil from Latin America and invest in infrastructure in the region, with a presidential visit planned for July, Chinese and Brazilians officials said on Friday.
## Infrastructure scavenging ##
Thieves target industrial AC units## Got food? ##
Measured by Gold and the Dow, Wheat Is Cheap (But Maybe Not For Long)
We may be tasting the first minimal increases in food prices that could soar to unimagined heights in the years ahead.

The killer stalking U.S. hog farms is known as PEDv, a malady that in less than a year has wiped out more than 10 percent of the nation’s pig population and helped send retail pork prices to record highs.
## Lifestyle Solutions ##
European volunteers help Greek ‘bailout gardens’
Volunteer gardeners from countries around Europe visited Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki, on Sunday to help local urban planting initiatives set up help residents hit by the country’s financial crisis.
Of course, this is not merely a “lifestyle solution,” but a major component of our efforts to survive — and thrive — as societies transition to much lower energy levels. Don’t think for a minute that this is something temporary until Greece “gets back on its feet.” Greece is a bellwether we should all be watching closely.  — RF## Environment/health ##

North Dakota finds more radioactive oil waste
North Dakota confirmed Thursday the discovery of a new radioactive dump of waste from oil drilling, and separately a company hired to clean up waste found in February at another location said it removed double  the amount of radioactive material originally estimated to be there.
Some generic drugs have had eye-popping price spikes (US)
## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
Why Is Blackwater Helping to Train Brazil’s World Cup Security?
Suspect in USS Cole bombing was tortured, expert says
The Saudi prisoner awaiting a death-penalty trial for the USS Cole bombing was tortured physically, mentally and sexually, an expert in treating torture victims testified Thursday at the war court.
People are storing more and more stuff online: photos, music, personal documents — even books. The business of cloud storage is growing 30 percent a year, Forrester Research says. But if you’re storing your digital belongings in the cloud, you should know you’re giving up some rights.
For a detailed treatment of the Tillman saga, start reading here. — RF
County road commissions have increasingly taken up the practice of permanently or temporarily turning paved roads into gravel in recent years to deal with issues of low funding and poor road conditions… Last year, about half of Michigan counties were forced to convert paved roads to gravel.
Dormant accounts are those that have seen no deposits or withdrawals for at least 10 years.
“You haven’t used this account in 10 years. Therefore the money is no longer yours!” This is just plain thievery. Many people put money in an account and leave it there with plans to use it upon retiring. Expect still more Japanese to keep their savings out of the banks and stuff their mattresses instead (or as it is known in Japan, “bureau-drawer deposits”). — RF
Children as young as ten taught how to spot radicalisation
Schoolchildren as young as ten are being taught how to spot radicalisation in their friends through a police scheme using a Facebook-style website.
Ratzilla: Over 60 rats caught in Crossgar home over four years
17 arrest warrants a day on EU orders
New figures show the extent of the use of controversial European Arrest Warrants on Britain’s streets
## US ##
I’m not the only one who perceives the development of neofeudalism and the new aristocracy. — RF

And finally…

====================================================================================

!DSPAM:57,535e9493205891765880157!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *