http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/common_cents_20130622/
SIRATYST (Stuff I Read and Thought You Should Too) -- “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” (Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, Agricola 30-31)"
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Statement From Leonard on Oglala Commemoration -- June 26, 2013
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Statement From Leonard on Oglala Commemoration
June 26, 2013
My Family and Friends. I hope you are comfortable and that you are all healthy and happy. For those of you who walked today, I imagine the sun gave you a little more color and I am proud of all of you. You know if I were out, I would have been walking with you, leading the charge, of course.
In my mind, I am right there with you. I can smell the burning sage and sweetgrass intermingled with the smells from the boxes of frybread and the big pans of potato salad. The “unci’s” are sitting on chairs in the shade, probably teasing each other and laughing, like only you can. I see all of you sitting on the blankets under the shade on the hard dry ground, trying to find a way to be comfortable. I can look over to where the old campsite was and spot the place where the guys would cut the wood, and the place where the gardens were.
A sadness comes over me as I see the foundation, where the homestead of Grama and grandpa Jumping Bull once stood. I remember the kids running around and playing, carefree and happy. At times it seems like it was a long time ago and other times, it feels like it was yesterday. Sometimes when I’m alone, I wonder why life has to be so hard for our people. It’s puzzling that some of our own people will turn against us. Is it money? Power? Greed? We were here because we were asked to be here, to stand as protection to the traditional families who continue to follow the original instructions as handed down to us from generation to generation in the form of our Creation stories. I am told there is now an investigation being implemented for the murder of the sixty some people killed during that reign of terror. It’s an outrage that it took over 40 years to discover that a bullet hole in the back doesn’t sound like death by natural cause. We were there also, to protect the land from being raped by the government for uranium. We have evidence of the chemical dumps placed on our land without the knowledge or consent of our members and the leaking of radiation 5 times the safe level, polluting the veins of our mother earth and turning our secred water into a poison that would cause our child bearing women to abort their unborn babies and cancer replacing natural cause on the death certificates of many of our people. I am not trying to make this a gloom and doom message. I am only trying to give an understanding to some of our young people that we need to continue to protect all that is sacred to us, our Elders, our women and our children, our culture and way of life and each other.
I am always asked about an update on what is going on with me and I will try to explain. As my team can tell you, my blood pressure is high, my diabetes is out of control to the point of causing problems to my sight and I have a lot of pain in walking. My medication has been withheld for several months and doctor appointments are a rare occurance. I have been tested for prostate cancer and although I was never given any clear answer of whether or not cancer exists, the symptons indicate there is definitely something wrong. The recent problems with shortness of breath and chest pains are causing me additional stress. I assure you, this is not the place to be sick or to have health problems because in prison, we are just another number. It’s just a good thing I don’t need to take medication to keep a sense of humor or I would definitely be screwed! Additionally, I was approved by my counselors inside, for a transfer to a medium security prison closer to home but the transfer was denied from the office in Texas, without a reason. Although the denial was appealed, who knows how long that will take to be reviewed.
In closing, I want to say “pilamiyeya” to all of you for your hard work. I know this is a great undertaking to organize an event. It humbles me to know that you are taking the time to remember not only me, but all of the warriors who are attempting to take the HIS STORY out of history, by standing up and telling OUR story. I stand with you in support of recognizing our inherent rights,our truth seekers and our sacred way of life. To those of you preparing to Sundance, I hope you will feel me dancing next to you, in the Inipi, I am there taking in the steam and singing with you. But as you can guess, I am getting tired. I just want to be home with my people. I want to wake up to the sound of the birds singing outside my window and the smell of “cowboy coffee” coming from the kitchen instead of hearing the clanging of cell doors and jingling of rings of keys. Please! Continue to fight for what is right. That is all I can ask.
Mitakuya oyasin!
Doksha,
Leonar
June 26, 2013
My Family and Friends. I hope you are comfortable and that you are all healthy and happy. For those of you who walked today, I imagine the sun gave you a little more color and I am proud of all of you. You know if I were out, I would have been walking with you, leading the charge, of course.
In my mind, I am right there with you. I can smell the burning sage and sweetgrass intermingled with the smells from the boxes of frybread and the big pans of potato salad. The “unci’s” are sitting on chairs in the shade, probably teasing each other and laughing, like only you can. I see all of you sitting on the blankets under the shade on the hard dry ground, trying to find a way to be comfortable. I can look over to where the old campsite was and spot the place where the guys would cut the wood, and the place where the gardens were.
A sadness comes over me as I see the foundation, where the homestead of Grama and grandpa Jumping Bull once stood. I remember the kids running around and playing, carefree and happy. At times it seems like it was a long time ago and other times, it feels like it was yesterday. Sometimes when I’m alone, I wonder why life has to be so hard for our people. It’s puzzling that some of our own people will turn against us. Is it money? Power? Greed? We were here because we were asked to be here, to stand as protection to the traditional families who continue to follow the original instructions as handed down to us from generation to generation in the form of our Creation stories. I am told there is now an investigation being implemented for the murder of the sixty some people killed during that reign of terror. It’s an outrage that it took over 40 years to discover that a bullet hole in the back doesn’t sound like death by natural cause. We were there also, to protect the land from being raped by the government for uranium. We have evidence of the chemical dumps placed on our land without the knowledge or consent of our members and the leaking of radiation 5 times the safe level, polluting the veins of our mother earth and turning our secred water into a poison that would cause our child bearing women to abort their unborn babies and cancer replacing natural cause on the death certificates of many of our people. I am not trying to make this a gloom and doom message. I am only trying to give an understanding to some of our young people that we need to continue to protect all that is sacred to us, our Elders, our women and our children, our culture and way of life and each other.
I am always asked about an update on what is going on with me and I will try to explain. As my team can tell you, my blood pressure is high, my diabetes is out of control to the point of causing problems to my sight and I have a lot of pain in walking. My medication has been withheld for several months and doctor appointments are a rare occurance. I have been tested for prostate cancer and although I was never given any clear answer of whether or not cancer exists, the symptons indicate there is definitely something wrong. The recent problems with shortness of breath and chest pains are causing me additional stress. I assure you, this is not the place to be sick or to have health problems because in prison, we are just another number. It’s just a good thing I don’t need to take medication to keep a sense of humor or I would definitely be screwed! Additionally, I was approved by my counselors inside, for a transfer to a medium security prison closer to home but the transfer was denied from the office in Texas, without a reason. Although the denial was appealed, who knows how long that will take to be reviewed.
In closing, I want to say “pilamiyeya” to all of you for your hard work. I know this is a great undertaking to organize an event. It humbles me to know that you are taking the time to remember not only me, but all of the warriors who are attempting to take the HIS STORY out of history, by standing up and telling OUR story. I stand with you in support of recognizing our inherent rights,our truth seekers and our sacred way of life. To those of you preparing to Sundance, I hope you will feel me dancing next to you, in the Inipi, I am there taking in the steam and singing with you. But as you can guess, I am getting tired. I just want to be home with my people. I want to wake up to the sound of the birds singing outside my window and the smell of “cowboy coffee” coming from the kitchen instead of hearing the clanging of cell doors and jingling of rings of keys. Please! Continue to fight for what is right. That is all I can ask.
Mitakuya oyasin!
Doksha,
Leonar
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
MAKE CALLS TO SAVE LYNNE STEWART'S LIFE -- WED-THUR-FRI
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CALL: Attorney General Eric Holder - 1 202 514 2001
Greetings to all
If Lynne's not home Friday or Saturday,.....I plan to make a stand in Washington D.C. startingMonday...in front of the white house...
CALL: Attorney General Eric Holder - 1 202 514 2001
WED-THUR-FRI: ALL OUT EFFORT: MAKE CALLS TO SAVE LYNNE STEWART'S LIFE
Please take time Wed-Thurs-Fri, June 12-14 to make calls for Lynne. An all-out effort is needed NOW! Your calls are having an impact. AND IF YOU CAN, JOIN RALPH POYNTER AT NOONON MONDAY JUNE 17 IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
Add your voice urging immediate Compassionate Release for imprisoned human rights attorney Lynne Stewart who is suffering with Stage 4 cancer in her lungs, chest and lymph nodes. Lynne needs immediate specialized medical care.
CALL: Attorney General Eric Holder - 1 202 514 2001
White House President Obama – 1 202 456 1414
Federal Bureau of Prisons – Director Charles Samuels – 1 202 307 3250
Please click here to sign or re-sign the petition for compassionate release for Lynne Stewart. Keep the pressure on!
LYNNE'S PARTNER RALPH POYNTER SAYS:
Greetings to all
and many many thanks for this show support...
If Lynne's not home Friday or Saturday,.....I plan to make a stand in Washington D.C. startingMonday...in front of the white house...
Hope those who can will join me..
Ralph Poynter
We urges everyone who can to join Ralph in front of the white house at noon on Monday with signs and banners
CALL: Attorney General Eric Holder - 1 202 514 2001
White House President Obama – 1 202 456 1414
Federal Bureau of Prisons – Director Charles Samuels – 1 202 307 3250
Please click here to sign or re-sign the petition for compassionate release for Lynne Stewart. Keep the pressure on!
For more information and latest updates, go to LynneStewart.org
Moon of Alabama: The NSA's Panopticon
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A comment on this "Moon of Alabama" blog post http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/06/the-nsas-panopticon.html#more
So the 'War On Terror' is the problem.
ANDREA MITCHELL (from a Clapper interview): What the president said in part was, "You can't have a 100% security and then you have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society."
The War on Terror is worldwide. It is war on everybody, and even those in the "homeland" can't be exempted from "inconvenience" -- i.e. loss of civil rights. Deprivation of civil liberties is an inevitable (and intended) part of a country at war. The bogus "war on terror' is no exception. You can't have one without the other.
An excellent analysis of this condition is Randolph Bourne's "War is the Health of the State" which is as valid now as when it was written in 1918. excerpts:
The moment war is declared . .The citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an august presence, through the imaginations of men. Patriotism becomes the dominant feeling, and produces immediately that intense and hopeless confusion between the relations which the individual bears and should bear toward the society of which he is a part.
War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them. Of course, the ideal of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity is never really attained.
War becomes almost a sport between the hunters and the hunted. The pursuit of enemies within outweighs in psychic attractiveness the assault on the enemy without. The whole terrific force of the State is brought to bear against the heretics. The nation boils with a slow insistent fever. A white terrorism is carried on by the Government against pacifists, socialists, enemy aliens, and a milder unofficial persecution against all persons or movements that can be imagined as connected with the enemy. War, which should be the health of the State, unifies all the bourgeois elements and the common people, and outlaws the rest.
In this great herd machinery, dissent is like sand in the bearings. The State ideal is primarily a sort of blind animal push toward military unity. Any difference with that unity turns the whole vast impulse toward crushing it.
So the 'War On Terror' is the problem.
"Patrick Durusau: Social Security Numbers – Close Enough for a Drone Strike?" -- via Naked Capitalism
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http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/patrick-durusau-social-security-numbers-close-enough-for-a-drone-strike.html
EXCERPT;
EXCERPT;
The more data you collect, the more problematic accurate mass identification becomes.
NSA Competency with Data (SSN or otherwise)
The “Underwear Bomber” parents meet with the CIA at least twice to warn them about their son.
A useful Senate Budget hearing on the NSA and its acquisition of phone, credit, bank and other records should go something like:
The following dialogue is fictional but the facts and links are real.
Sen. X: Mr. N, as a representative of the NSA, are you familiar with the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?
Mr. N: Yes.
Sen. X: I understand that the CIA entered his name in the Terrorist
Identities Datamart Environment in November of 2009. But his name was not added to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, which feeds the Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.’s No Fly List.
Identities Datamart Environment in November of 2009. But his name was not added to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, which feeds the Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.’s No Fly List.
Mr. N: Yes.
Sen. X: The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, Terrorist Screening Database, Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.’s No Fly List are all U.S. government databases? Databases to which the NSA has complete access?
Mr. N: Yes.
Sen. X: So, the NSA was unable to manage data in four (4) U.S. government databases well enough to prevent a terrorist from boarding a plane destined from the United States.
My question is if the NSA can’t manage four U.S. goverment databases, what proof is there the NSA can usefully manage all phone and other electronic traffic usefully?
Mr. N: I don’t know.
Sen. X: Who would know?
Mr. N: The computer and software bidders for the NSA DarkStar facility in Utah.
Sen. X: And who would they be?
Mr. N: That’s classified.
Sen. X: Classified?
Mr. N: Yes, classified.
Sen. X: Has it ever occurred to you that bidders have an interest in their contracts being funded and agencies in having larger budgets?
Mr. N: Sorry, I don’t understand the question.
Sen. X: My bad, I really didn’t think you would.
End of fictional hearing transcript
The known facts show the NSA can’t manage four (4) U.S. government databases to prevent a known terrorist from entering the U.S.
What evidence would you offer to prove the NSA is competent to use complex data sets? (You can find more negative evidence on evavesdropping at Bruce Scheneier’s NSA Eavesdropping Yields Dead Ends.)
PS: On the National Security Industrial Complex, see: Apparently Some Stuff Happened This Weekend.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Monday, June 03, 2013
Sunday, June 02, 2013
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