Benedict Obama’s Invasion of America

If millions of soldiers from south of the border were flooding our nation for the purposes of colonizing our land, we would easily recognize the threat. And if some amongst us were aiding and abetting this invasion — purposely lowering border security to facilitate it — we’d know what to call them. And we’d know how they should be dealt with.

This comes to mind when considering the flood of humanity that does continually pour across our border, a phenomenon whose most recent manifestation is the children’s crusade (which includes many teens, some of whom are gang members) currently in the news. Oh, the people trespassing on our land aren’t wearing uniforms; they aren’t wielding cold steel. But this isn’t always necessary. As Muammar Gaddafi once pointed out, some invasions are prosecuted “without sword, without gun, without conquest.” “We don’t need terrorists; we don’t need homicide bombers,” he said. “The 50 plus million Muslims [in Europe] will turn it into the Muslim Continent within a few decades.” Of course, in the waning West, we call this “diversity” and “demographic change.”

And as we’re being diversified into a country definitely not Western via demographic warfare, as we euphemize from sunrise to the sunset of our demise, something is exactly the same as in my opening example:

There are those amongst us aiding and abetting this invasion.

We can start with the fact that Barack Obama and his fellow travelers have sparked this most recent human wave with promises of amnesty for young illegals. Obama has also hobbled immigration enforcement, which itself is a euphemistic way of saying that he has, like a fifth column, cleared the way for an invading force. Adding insult to injury, not only is there no effort at deportation, but his administration’s first response to the children’s crusade was to provide lawyers for the illegals — paid for with your tax money — to help make these reinforcements permanent.

In fact, Obama is so intent on aiding the invasion that he has served notice that if Congress won’t be complicit in his scheme, he will use an executive order to help the foreign boots on the ground.

Question: what do you call such a person?

Of course, this is nothing new. We have had seven amnesties in recent decades, and all the way through there were promises to secure the border. It never happened. Fool me once, shame on you. And if they can fool you seven times?

You’re a doormat.

There’s only one thing foreign boots on the ground do to doormats, mind you — and it isn’t to show respect and gratitude.

It’s obvious why leftists such as Obama have long facilitated immigration: they are importing voters. Upwards of 80 percent of the new arrivals will vote Democrat upon being naturalized. And is this any surprise? Most all illegals — and a majority of legal immigrants — hail from Hispanic nations, which are notoriously socialist (only the degree varies). And people don’t suddenly change ideology just because they change location.

This brings us to Republicans who claim that Hispanics are a “natural conservative constituency” and that all the GOP need do is offer the olive branch of amnesty. Theirs is an imagination that could put Gene Roddenberry to shame.

While Hispanics do generally favor amnesty, the main thing the majority of them want is what they voted for in their socialist homelands: big government. Don’t believe me, Karl? Just consider recent Pew research (hat tip: American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson) showing that only 19 percent of Hispanics favor a smaller government while a whopping 75 percent prefer a bigger one. Of course, assimilation is the answer, right? Take a gander at the rest of the Pew data:

And what does this equate to once Hispanic majority status is reached (along with the leftward drift of non-Hispanic whites)?

• 19- 75 = government of Venezuela
• 36-58 = government of Mexico

In other words, modern immigration = death of America.

And to reiterate, this doesn’t mean just illegal migration. Ever since Ted Kennedy’s immigration act of 1965, 85 percent of our legal immigrants have hailed from the Third World and Asia. So in terms of demographic and ideological change, there is no difference between legal and illegal migration.

Yet it isn’t just Hispanic immigrants. One reason I favor a moratorium on all immigration is that we face a largely socialist world. Where would we find immigrants amenable to authentic Americanism? Europe? China? Africa? The Middle East? The only exception may be Russia, but I wouldn’t want to bet my culture on that, either.

While I’ve framed this ideologically, it can be defined culturally and racially (gasp!), too. And I won’t shrink from this since it is exactly what the left is doing.

There’s an old saying, if you can’t get the people to change the government, change the people. Here’s a simple fact: what we call traditional conservatism is a phenomenon of Christian, European-descent people (modern Europeans no longer qualify because of their secularism). One can debate the reasons for this, but it is plainly true. It’s why almost 90 percent of GOP voters are white and almost 90 percent are Christian; it’s why church attendance is one of the best predictors of voting patterns. Mind you, this doesn’t mean that other groups won’t contain some conservatives, but the fact is that no other major group is majority conservative.

Then there is that uncomfortable truth: Obama and many other leftists hate what they see as “white America”— Obama described white culture as “alien” in his book Dreams from My Father — and they want to destroy it as fast as possible. This is why, while giving the 1998 commencement address at Oregon’s Portland State University, Bill Clinton spoke glowingly of the day when whites become a minority in America (to the uproarious cheers of the mostly white students).

Of course, this is where Obama, Clinton and the rest of the fifth column will say that if you’re not cheering, you’re a bigot.

If the Joneses were somehow gaining access to the Smith’s home, squatting there and slowly taking over while the police refused to enforce trespassing laws, no one would wonder if the Smiths objected. The fact that Joneses aren’t Smiths would be explanation enough. Or let’s say that millions of Chinese were flooding the Ivory Coast, were supplanting African culture and threatening to soon outnumber the Africans. Would we be surprised if the Ivorians were up in arms? Would anthropologists call the transformation anything but cultural genocide?

Again, though, we call this diversity. But there’s a funny thing about that oh-so necessary quality:

It’s only encouraged in Western lands.

If diversity is such an imperative, why don’t we push it in Saudi Arabia, Japan, Tunisia or Rwanda? And don’t tell me we’re just minding our own business, as Obama thought nothing of parading around Africa last year preaching about homosexual rights.

The truth is that when liberals say “Our strength lies in our diversity,” they really mean their strength. They’re building a solid socialist majority that won’t blink at leftist corruption because these new arrivals are inured to it — corruption is status quo in their native lands.

And what else can we say about these migrants? Most are just coming to the US to make money, while some have criminal designs. But what is certain is that even if they were capable of shedding deep-seated socialist instincts, they’re not coming here to become American — in spirit. And they’re casting votes Americans won’t cast.

Back in 2009, a former Labour (Britain’s liberal party) speechwriter created a firestorm by revealing that the UK government had encouraged unfettered immigration “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity.” This prompted The Telegraph’s Ed West to call the leftists’ plan “borderline treason.”

Borderline? I think that’s another border that was brazenly crossed. And does this kind of behavior deserve any less damning a characterization on our side of the pond?

Agenda 21: The Plan For A Global Fascist Dictatorship

One of the most popular films of 2012 was  which portrayed a post-apocalyptic nation called Panem in which a super-rich, super-pampered, super-callous ‘elite’ lived in high-tech luxury while the rest of the population daily battled to survive in abject poverty locked away behind prison fences in intensively-populated ‘people zones’. Panem comes from the Latin phrase ‘panem et circenses’ or ‘bread and circuses’ — a term derived from Rome and meaning to give the people diversions and distractions to hide what is being done to them. Exactly what is happening today.

The Totalitarian Tiptoes to just such a world are happening all around us, although most people can’t see this because they don’t connect the dots. People tend to live in their own ‘little world’ and focus on only a few subjects and interests. This gives them a distorted view of what is happening because they are so busy concentrating on the strands that they cannot see the tapestry. The world of The Hunger Games is already well on the way to fruition unless humanity has a fundamental reassessment of reality.

The foundations, structure and ‘must haves’ of a Hunger Games society are detailed in a plan being imposed through the United Nations called Agenda 21 which encompasses two related themes of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘biodiversity’. Sustainable development — as in don’t use more than can be replaced — sounds sensible enough at first until you realize what this and biodiversity really mean in the context of the conspiracy.

Agenda 21 was established at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, in 1992, hosted by Maurice Strong, a Canadian oil and business billionaire and long-time front man for the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Strong has been a leader of their exploit-the-environment-to-scam-the-people programme which is now in full flow. Strong is a member of the Club of Rome, the environmental Hidden Hand in the Round Table network that includes the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations.

Strong said in support of Agenda 21:

‘Isn’t the only hope for this planet that the industrialised civilization collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?’

This is a man who became mega-rich through the oil industry. He now lives in billionaire luxury in China where carbon-emitting industry is booming and he is a director of the Chicago Climate Exchange (largest shareholder, Goldman Sachs), which is ‘the world’s first and North America’s only legally-binding greenhouse-gas emission registry reduction-system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil’.

The Exchange was established with funding from the Joyce Foundation where Barack Obama was once a director. Strong and Al Gore make money through the Carbon Exchange and other means from the lies they promote about climate change and the solutions they propose. Kate Johnston wrote on the Globalresearch.cawebsite:

‘The same men that sold us the myth of man-made global warming are the same men that sold us the “solution” of a Carbon Tax and Emissions Trading Scheme and now they’re profiting off their lucrative investments which are based on lies.’ (See ).

Strong fled to China in 2006 after being accused of corruption with respect to the UN oil for food program.

Climate change propaganda is a No-Problem-Reaction-Solution technique to justify Agenda 21 and its stable-mate the Biodiversity Treaty. This is an internationally-binding document involving nearly 200 countries. The United States signed the treaty, but it was not ratified by the Senate after people like ecologist and ecosystem scientist Dr. Michael Coffman exposed its true consequences and implications. He said that he realized during the 1980s and 1990s that the plan was to use the excuse of protecting the environment to confiscate half the land of the United States.

Similar plans exist for every other country. America may not have ratified the treaty, but it is being implemented by the day. Agenda 21 demands the central global control of all land; all private property; all water sources and distribution; all other resources which includes people in its definition; all energy supplies and distribution and all food production and distribution.

Agenda 21 is called ‘the agenda for the 21st century’ and that refers to global fascism / communism. This is a summary of what Agenda 21 / Sustainable Development / Biodiversity is seeking to impose:

• An end to national sovereignty
• State planning and management of all land resources, ecosystems, deserts, forests, mountains, oceans and fresh water; agriculture; rural development; biotechnology; and ensuring ‘equity’ (equal slavery)
• The State to ‘define the role’ of business and financial resources
• Abolition of private property (it’s not ‘sustainable’)
• ‘Restructuring’ the family unit
• Children raised by the State
• People told what their job will be
• Major restrictions on movement
• Creation of ‘human settlement zones’
• Mass resettlement as people are forced to vacate land where they currently live
• Dumbing down education (achieved)
• Mass global depopulation in pursuit of all the above

This horrific plan is being coordinated through the United Nations, the stalking horse for world dictatorship, via a non-governmental network once called the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives ICLEI), and now known as Local Governments for Sustainability although still using the shortened name ICLEI. The United Nations is now opening ‘embassies’ around the world called ‘UN Houses’ under the guise of raising awareness of UN activities, but not the activities that people really need to know about. They have opened one in Hunter Square, Edinburgh, Scotland, for example.

Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and other organisations are integrating the plan into every village, town, city and region and it is already becoming widespread across the world. The organisational infrastructure of Agenda 21 is already fantastic and involves government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), think-tanks, trusts, foundations, ‘training’ (mind control) operations and ‘initiatives’ which have been building the infrastructure for what they call ‘the post-industrial, post-democratic’ society while the public go about their daily business oblivious of the prison being built all around them by the hour.

Harvey Ruvin, a vice-chairman of ICLEI, was asked how Agenda 21 would affect liberties with regard to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, private property and freedom of speech. He replied:

‘Individual rights must take a back-seat to the collective.’

The arrogance of these people is breathtaking. The extraordinary network supporting ICLEI and Agenda 21 includes the Rockefeller-sponsored America 2050; United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG); Metropolis; World Economic Forum; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; World Bank; Clinton Climate Initiative; Climate Group (Tony Blair); World Conservation Union (IUCN); Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership; Global Footprint Network; Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership; Global Footprint Network; International Centre for Sustainable Cities; Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative and the Stakeholder Forum. These and so many others are working to the same end — Agenda 21 and total human enslavement worldwide, although most of those involved will have no idea that they are building a global prison for themselves and their families.

Another of these front organisations is the World Business Council for Sustainable Development which includes the hideously anti-people Monsanto. Destroying food-growing land, contaminating the countryside with toxins and replacing proper food with deadly and soil-destroying genetically-modified organisms is Monsanto’s contribution to ‘sustainability’. Agenda 21 is operating in more than 600 towns, cities and counties in the United States and expanding by the day.

A member of the Agenda 21 committees in Santa Cruz, California, in the mid-1990s said that the proposals he heard were so crazy that he laughed at them because they could never happen. These included that ‘Mother Earth’s surface was not to be scratched’; humans should be concentrated in settlement zones; education should focus on the environment as a central organising principle and all aspects of life covered by Agenda 21, but all of these crazy plans are now being introduced. It’s all happy, feely, smiling faces and how we care, when the truth is that Agenda 21 is a vicious, brutal, heartless strategy to impose a global Orwellian state.

Agenda 21 manipulators either create or hijack some local organisation or other, many of them in locations with large populations, and they have their (controlled) leadership to agree the Agenda 21 blueprint for their community together with any uninformed, unwitting idiots who can be sold a human nightmare as saving the planet. This allows them to claim that decisions were made after ‘public participation’ when that would have been the last thing they wanted, and 99 percent of the ‘community’ has never heard of Agenda 21 let alone had their say on it. They want no democracy which is why these people talk privately, sometimes even publicly, about the post-democratic, post-industrial society.

They want to control every man, woman and child on the planet — everyone and everywhere and every resource, water source and piece of land. To do this they need a global structure of fascist control that goes right down into every local community with the jackboots at local level enforcing the will of the global centre. This is why there is so much emphasis on local authorities and town and city authorities in Agenda 21.

There is a ‘training organisation’ called Common Purpose (common purpose, common consensus, everyone the same) which has been paid very large amounts of money by governments and local authorities, police forces and other institutions of state to ‘train the leaders’ of the post-democratic, post-industrial society. Common Purpose was heavily represented in the Leveson ‘inquiry’ leading to new media laws in Britain. It is not a training programme; it is a programming programme and turns out unquestioning zombie administrators who serve the god of Agenda 21 and the associated European Union. The theme of ‘common’ also applies to the ever greater standardisation of laws and regulations and constant reference to ‘international law’. This is the unfolding global dictatorship of Agenda 21. What do you need to be a global dictator? Laws that everyone on the planet must obey — international law and the standardisation of global regulation.

You can see  connection when you look at the official Biodiversity wish-for map of the United States in Figure 1. The red areas are designated for no human use and most of the rest of America is confiscated for little and highly-regulated use. The mass of the population would be concentrated in high-rise, densely-packed ‘human settlement zones’ and denied access to something like 80 percent of present day America. It is without question the world of The Hunger Games with a globally-enforced top-down hierarchy that has a world government using its world army and police force to impose its will at regional and local levels (sectors). The Rockefeller-funded America 2050 has produced a map of the new United States divided into eleven ‘megaregions’ and includes parts of Canada (Figure 2). Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, British Columbia, become the megaregion known as ‘Cascadia’ and this regional system comes under the collective name of ‘megalopolis’ which is Greek for large city or great city. America, Canada and Mexico are due to merge to form the North American Union in line with the European Union blueprint.

The European Union is planned to be broken up into regions and the same structure is in development all over the world. The map of the new Europe has regions from different countries linked up with regions in other countries to end any vestige of national sovereignty or even national existence (Figure 3). This is a global plan with its fierce central control hidden behind its lower elements such as the European Union and local government. What is planned would clearly require a fantastic reduction of the global population and this is indeed what Agenda 21 / Sustainable Development / Biodiversity demand.

The e-book Agenda 21: Your Life In Their Hands can be downloaded here.

reference:

Icke, David. . Ryde: David Icke Books, 2013.

 is an independent researcher in the fields of esoteric science and metaphysics, and a self-initiate of the Western Esoteric Tradition. His interest in these subjects began in 1988. Julian was born in England, received his education as an electronic and computer engineer from the University of Bolton, served in a Vaishnava monastery during 2010, and has travelled to over 21 countries. Julian is also a member of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

Source:   |  Waking Times | War Is Crime

Totalitarianism and the Silence of the Lambs

A few days ago, a prominent attorney asked me a question: can religious liberty and the growing demands of government and others occupy the same space?  And if not, who wins?

This is, perhaps, not quite the right question.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter, aka “Hannibal the Cannibal” in  The Silence of the Lambs asked a more fitting one:

First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature?

Most pundits observing what has gone on recently in Arizona and other states regarding same-sex marriage have concluded, “We are witnessing a clash between religious and civil liberties.”  While many nod their heads in agreement, this analysis is wrong.

The fact is that what the left is demanding now through our courts, through legislatures, and at ballot boxes around the country does not constitute “rights” at all, or at least not in the historical sense.

This is not a “clash of religious and civil rights.”  This is a clash of freedom and untenable, outrageous demands.

 

There is something much, much deeper going on here.

Same-sex marriage is a trial balloon of sorts, being used to test how far Americans will allow their consciences to be suppressed by the State.

“If Christians can be compelled to lend a craft to something their conscience objects to, what can’t they be compelled to participate in? We’re talking about precedent; and the cases before us are bellwether test cases about whether private actors can be forcibly mandated to go against their conscience” (“Of Consciences and Cakes,” First Things, Feb. 20, Andrew Walker).

A couple years ago, the Health and Human Services Contraceptive and Abortifacient Mandate served the same purpose, leading the way to where we now are.  When the State can get away with abusive behavior and strong-arm tactics toward even The Little Sisters of the Poor, let alone privately owned businesses such as Hobby Lobby, then statists know that the time is ripe to take another big step.

This battle is much bigger than anybody thinks it is.  We cannot see the forest for the trees.  We are not witnessing a clash of rights; we are in the middle of a massive social experiment.  This is a test for the viability of incremental totalitarianism.  Nothing less.

In a kind of Cloward-Piven Strategy, the assault – or “test,” or however you want to identify it – is occurring on many different fronts and on many different levels simultaneously.  In addition to same-sex marriage and the health care mandate(s), we have the IRS targeting of conservative groups, constant Second Amendment attacks, voter photo ID initiatives labeled as racist by the DOJ, and state initiatives to curb abortions labeled a “War on Women.”

Perhaps most chilling is the way that federalism is being undermined from within the states themselves.  State judges are now routinely overturning the expressed will of the people, acting unilaterally to impose novel viewpoints on entire state populations.

The fifty states, which are supposed to be laboratories for experimentation – conducting trial runs, so to speak – are being stripped of that function.

The beauty of America is our diversity, much of which is still reflected in the personalities of each of our states.  If the reach of the national government extends too far and we become thoroughly homogenized, we inevitably start moving toward a type of tyranny.  If the rules and the standards are exactly the same in every state, where can one go either for respite or advantage?  As the force of the national government grows, this key element of our American liberty recedes, perhaps to be lost forever.

The Economist magazine once described the wonderful functioning of our local governance very nicely:

America has 50 states with 50 sets of laws. Virginia will never ban hunting, but even if it did, there are 49 other states that won’t. In America, people with unusual hobbies are generally left alone. And power is so devolved that you can more or less choose which rules you want to live under.

If you like low taxes and the death penalty, try Texas. For good public schools and subsidized cycle paths, try Portland, Oregon. Even within states, the rules vary widely. Bath County, Kentucky is dry. Next-door Bourbon County, as the name implies, is not. Nearby Montgomery County is in between: a “moist” county where the sale of alcohol is banned except in one city. Liberal foreign students let it all hang out at Berkeley; those from traditional backgrounds may prefer a campus where there is no peer pressure to drink or fornicate, such as Brigham Young in Utah. (Dec. 19, 2009)

If all our laws and regulations are essentially nationalized, there will be no choices left to us other than the single choice to comply.  The very thing that makes the United States such a wonderful success – E pluribus unum, “out of many, one” – is being destroyed.  Ironically, in the name of diversity, we are squashing diversity, trampling out opinions anathema to progressive ideology.

Statists are tickled pink that they are able to make headway on this.  And for the most part, the media are willing collaborators, as pointed out by Mollie Hemingway in The Federalist:

Religious liberty is a deeply radical concept. It was at this country’s founding and it hasn’t become less so. Preserving it has always been a full-time battle. But it’s important, because religion is at the core of people’s identity. A government that tramples religious liberty is not a government that protects economic freedom. It’s certainly not a government that protects conscience rights. A government that tramples religious liberty does not have expansive press freedoms. Can you think of one country with a narrow view of religious liberty but an expansive view of economic freedom, freedom of association, press freedoms or free speech rights? One?

A media less hostile to religious liberty would think less about scoring cheap political points, creating uncivil political climates, and disparaging institutions that help humans flourish.  A media with a higher regard for truth would, it turns out, have a higher regard for religious liberty.

Sadly, we seem to have left the world of reason and tolerance. Could our media climate demonstrate that any better?  And what lies ahead, if left uncorrected, is illogical and tyrannical.  Freedom of religion was the central principle in the moral case of our country.  Once that’s gone, how long can the Republic stand?

Returning to Dr. Lecter’s question, “what is it in itself? What is its nature?”

Its nature is this: totalitarianism.

The current visible clash of religious and asserted civil “rights” is secondary – a symptom, not an actual cause.

In fact, the logical conclusion for the trajectory we are now on is the eventual squashing of both civil and religious rights, and this will occur because we have allowed a powerful government to play us one group against another.

What can each of us do?

The only way to stop the advancement of totalitarian measures is for the grassroots of each state to bravely stand up to the bullying, silencing tactics of out-of-touch, frightened judges, legislators, corporate cronies, and media collaborators, as they lead us down a path of decreased liberty and increased totalitarianism.

Stand up for social issues that you know in your gut to be true.  Don’t allow yourself to be silenced by political correctness.  Stand up for marriage.  Stand up for life.  Stand up for the right of children to be born and to have both a mom and a dad.

Stand up also for constitutionally limited government and fiscal responsibility.

You have Truth with a capital T on your side.  You are right, and they are wrong, so do not be afraid.

Don’t make the mistake of remaining quiet until you are certain you have a winning argument.  That is not your responsibility, and that is what the totalitarian left is hoping you will do.  All you are responsible for is to speak truthfully and to let others know your beliefs.  We outnumber them.  We can overwhelm them with Truth, if only each of us would open our mouths and proclaim the Truth at every opportunity.

Remember: be not afraid.

Source: Doug Mainwaring | American Thinker

Abortion: America’s National Holocaust

Yesterday marked the 41st anniversary of the infamous US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, which, in effect, legalized abortion-on-demand nationwide. The aftermath of this tragic ruling is the deaths of over 55 million innocent unborn babies. It is no hyperbole to say abortion-on-demand is America’s national holocaust. Think about it, every American citizen today, 41 years old or younger, has never known a country that respected and protected innocent human life in the womb.

Consider this, too: when Hitler’s Third Reich was at its zenith, the abortion rate in Germany was 40%. Guess what? The abortion rate in America today is right at 40%. In fact, statistically speaking, the most dangerous place to be in America is not in an automobile without wearing a seat belt, or on a commercial airliner with a potential terrorist on board, but in the womb of one’s mother.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson once headed America’s largest abortion clinic in New York City. He admitted superintending over the killing of 75,000 unborn babies. He later recanted his pro-abortion activity and wrote what may be the quintessential book defending an unborn child’s right to life, “Aborting America.” Dr. Nathanson said, “There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy.”

Dr. Mildred Jefferson was a surgeon at Boston University Medical Center, a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery with many honors and awards. She said, “Many people try to hide behind the confusion of not knowing what happens before a baby is born. But we do not have to be confused. We in medicine and science have a different name for every stage of the development of the baby, but it does not matter at all whether you know those names or not. When a young woman has not had much opportunity to go to school and she becomes pregnant, no one has to tell her that she is going to have a baby.

“I became a doctor in the tradition that is represented in the Bible of looking upon medicine as a high calling. I will not stand aside and have this great profession of mine, of the doctor, give up the designation of healer to become that of the social executioner. The Supreme Court Justices only had to hand down an order. Social workers only have to make arrangements, but it has been given to my profession to destroy the life of the innocent and the helpless.

“Today it is the unborn child; tomorrow it is likely to be the elderly or those who are incurably ill. Who knows but that a little later it may be anyone who has political or moral views that do not fit into the distorted new order? To that question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ I answer ‘Yes.’ It is everyone’s responsibility to safeguard and preserve life. A child is a member of the human family and deserves care and concern.”

How many physicians, scientists, teachers, artists, musicians, pastors, missionaries, statesmen, musicians, businessmen, tradesmen, engineers, and notable contributors to society have been murdered in the womb since abortion-on-demand was legalized in this country? Millions, I’m sure.

At this point, I can hear someone interrupting, “What about cases involving rape or incest?”

While these cases number less than 1% of pregnancies, consider this case history: a 12-year-old girl was raped and became pregnant. “Get an abortion,” you say? Congratulations! You just killed Ethel Waters. The manner in which a baby was conceived in no way diminishes the human worth of the baby. Since when do we kill children for the sins of one parent?

And as Dr. Jefferson said, just where does the acceptance of abortion lead? Does anyone remember Baby Doe in Bloomington, Indiana?

A little baby was born April 9, 1982, with Down’s syndrome in a Bloomington, Indiana, hospital. The parents refused to allow a doctor to correct a defect in the esophagus that prevented eating, because the child was born with Down’s. The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the parents’ right to make this decision. When news of this atrocity got out, adoption offers came in from all over America. Several members of the medical staff who were aghast that such a thing could happen in their hospital resigned over the incident. An appeal was quickly started, but Baby Doe died of starvation on April 15, 1982. There is no doubt that this case, and many others similar to it, are directly related to the Roe v Wade decision that, in effect, makes babies nothing more than the property of the state with no human rights ascribed to them.

Add to this blatant disrespect for human life the new socialized, mandated government-run health care system now in effect–complete with cost-related rationing of medical treatments–and one can only imagine how the value of human life will continue to decline in this country. We are already hearing multiple reports of people who are not able to have surgical procedures because of all of the government red-tape and the uncertainty of physicians and hospitals as to whether the government will authorize payment.

I suggest that everyone start taking care of themselves and trying to stay healthy, because, under Obamacare, illness could become a death sentence–not because of the illness, but because of the lack of proper medical treatment due to the rationing of health care by government-imposed financial stipulations.

Plus, if you want to do some personal research that will really send chills up your spine, start investigating the fact that many scientists and researchers are seriously discussing genetic manipulation and genetic engineering. Our own government and military are already culpable in grotesque medical experimentation on both civilian and military personnel.

Our own Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has admitted to using military personnel as human guinea pigs for medical, biological, and mental experimentation under various programs associated with the now-infamous title, MK-ULTRA. CIA officials say the programs have all been scrapped. Don’t you believe it.

In addition, consider the testimony of Dr. Carolyn Gerster, a physician specializing in internal medicine and cardiopulmonary diseases. She obtained her medical degree from the University Of Oregon Medical School in Portland.

Dr. Gerster told Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, “I was asked to become a member of the American College of Physicians many years ago. It’s an honorary society of internal medicine. I was very proud right up until the day that the society gave the James D. Bruce Award for Medical Research to Dr. Saul Krugman for the following experiment. Dr. Krugman had taken living hepatitis virus MS2 and injected this living virus into 25 retarded children in Willowbrook Home for the Retarded in upstate New York. This was defended on the basis that they would probably get the hepatitis virus anyway.”

Consider, too, that contrary to what most people assume, the vast majority of physicians graduating from medical school today no longer take a Hippocratic-type oath–an oath that binds physicians to the following: “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary [medical device] to cause an abortion.”

As Schaeffer and Koop pointed out in their book, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” “The Declaration of Geneva (adopted in September 1948 by the General Assembly of the World Medical Organization and modeled closely on the Hippocratic Oath) became used as the graduation oath by more and more medical schools. It includes: ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.’ This concept of the preservation of human life has been the basis of the medical profession and society in general. It is significant that when the University of Pittsburgh changed from the Hippocratic Oath to the Declaration of Geneva in 1971, the students deleted ‘from the time of conception’ from the clause.”

Today, the ageless principles that had guided the medical profession throughout Western Civilization have been expunged from a majority of our physicians’ training and practice. And the Roe Supreme Court decision had much to do with it.

What is especially irritating about the whole abortion debate is the way the subject has been used as a political football by those on both the right and the left of the political aisle. While the national Democratic Party proudly touts itself as being “pro-choice,” it has been the so-called “pro-life” Republican Party that is mostly to blame for legalized abortion being left as the law of the land for over four decades.

Think of it: the GOP has dominated US Supreme Court appointments for the 41 years since the Roe decision. In fact, the 1973 court that released the Roe decision was a Republican-appointed court by a 6-3 margin. The same GOP-dominated court also rendered the Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decision reaffirming Roe.

Consider still: the “pro-life” Republican Party controlled the entire federal government from the election of 2000 to the election of 2006: six long years of GOP domination of both houses of Congress, the White House, and the US Supreme Court. And in all of that time, not one single unborn baby’s life was saved. Not one!

And, yet, each year, former Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) would introduce the Sanctity of Life Act. And each year, the bill would sit in the document room of the Capitol Building and gather dust. What would Rep. Paul’s bill have done? (1) It would have defined unborn babies as persons under the law. (2) Under the authority of Article. III. Section. 2. of the US Constitution, it would have removed abortion from the jurisdiction of the court. Had the “pro-life” Republican congress passed Dr. Paul’s bill, and the “pro-life” President, G. W. Bush, signed it into law, Roe v. Wade would have been effectively overturned.

So, why didn’t President Bush trumpet the bill? Where was the Republican leader in the Senate? Where was the Republican Speaker of the House? Where was Orrin Hatch? Where was John McCain? Where was Lindsey Graham? Where was the National Right to Life Committee? Where were the tens of thousands of “pro-life” pastors and Christians?

Not only that: these same “pro-life” pastors, church members, and conservatives refused to support Congressman Ron Paul for President in 2008, and again in 2012, because he was not “conservative” enough. Actually, they opposed him because he opposed the war in Iraq, which means they would rather support a politician who promotes taking America into unconstitutional wars–and who will do nothing to overturn Roe v Wade and save the lives of unborn babies–than support a man who insisted that the Constitution be followed, and actually had a constitutional plan to overturn Roe v Wade and end abortion-on-demand as a national “right.” No wonder Jesus noted that unbelievers often have it over believers in the brains department. (See Luke 16:8.)

I remind you that securing life and liberty is the primary purpose of government (read the Declaration of Independence). Should it surprise us that the same government that feels no responsibility to protect the lives of innocent unborn children would feel any responsibility to protect our liberties? No wonder this government seems hell-bent on destroying our personal liberties: the wanton slaughter of 55 million unborn babies has seared its conscience.

Worse yet is the manner in which our pastors and churches seem completely unsympathetic to the silent screams of the slaughtered unborn. How many pastors will even mention Roe v Wade in their pulpits this week? Most Christians will go through this week and never even give a second thought to the plight of the millions of unborn babies being legally murdered in this country. And, furthermore, their conscience will certainly not be pricked by anything they hear from the pastors in their pulpits this week–or any other week, for that matter.

Legalized abortion is a national holocaust; an affront to our national character; a contradiction of established principles subscribed to from the beginning of Western Civilization; an insult to the principles of our Declaration of Independence; a bane of our national spirit; and a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. That we have allowed it to continue for 41 years now stands as an indictment against this generation of Americans (especially America’s Christians) and bodes ominously for the well-being of our posterity.

Fluoride – Killing Us Softly

There’s nothing like a glass of cool, clear water to quench one’s thirst. But the next time you or your child reaches for one, you might want to question whether that water is in fact, too toxic to drink. If your water is fluoridated, the answer may well be yes.

For decades, we have been told a lie, a lie that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the weakening of the immune systems of tens of millions more. This lie is called fluoridation. A process we were led to believe was a safe and effective method of protecting teeth from decay is in fact a fraud. For decades it’s been shown that fluoridation is neither essential for good health nor protective of teeth. What it does is poison the body. We should all at this point be asking how and why public health policy and the American media continue to live with and perpetuate this scientific sham.

The Latest in Fluoride News

Today more than ever, evidence of fluoride’s toxicity is entering the public sphere.The summer of 2012 saw the publication of a systematic review and meta-analysis by researchers at Harvard University that explored the link between exposure to fluoride and neurological and cognitive function among children. The report pooled data from over 27 studies- many of them from China- carried out over the course of 22 years. The results, which were published in the journal Environmental Health Sciencesshowed a strong connection between exposure to fluoride in drinking water and decreased IQ scores in children. The team concluded that “the results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults.” ¹

The newest scientific data suggest that the damaging effects of fluoride extend to reproductive health as well. A 2013 study published in the journal Archives of Toxicology showed a link between fluoride exposure and male infertility in mice. The study’s findings suggest that sodium fluoride impairs the ability of sperm cells in mice to normally fertilize the egg through a process known as chemotaxis. ² This is the latest in more than 60 scientific studies on animals that have identified an association between male infertility and fluoride exposure.³

Adding more fuel to the fluoride controversy is a recent investigative report by NaturalNews exposing how the chemicals used to fluoridate United States’ water systems today are commonly purchased from Chinese chemical plants looking to discard surplus stores of this form of industrial waste. Disturbingly, the report details that some Chinese vendors of fluoride advertise on their website that their product can be used as an “adhesive preservative”, an “insecticide” as well as a” flux for soldering and welding”.⁴ One Chinese manufacturer, Shanghai Polymet Commodities Ltd,. which produces fluoride destined for municipal water reserves in the United States, notes on their website that their fluoride is “highly corrosive to human skin and harmful to people’s respiratory organs”. ⁵

The Fluoride Phase Out at Home and Abroad

There are many signs in recent years that indicate growing skepticism over fluoridation. The New York Times reported in October 2011 that in the previous four years, about 200 jurisdictions across the USA moved to cease water fluoridation. A panel composed of scientists and health professionals in Fairbanks, Alaska recently recommended ceasing fluoridation of the county water supply after concluding that the addition of fluoride to already naturally-fluoridated reserves could pose health risks to 700,000 residents. The move to end fluoridation would save the county an estimated $205,000 annually. ⁶

The city of Portland made headlines in 2013 when it voted down a measure to fluoridate its water supply. The citizens of Portland have rejected introducing the chemical to drinking water on three separate occasions since the 1950’s. Portland remains the largest city in the United States to shun fluoridation.⁷

The movement against fluoridation has gained traction overseas as well. In 2013, Israel’s Ministry of Health committed to a countrywide phase-out of fluoridation. The decision came after Israel’s Supreme Court deemed the existing health regulations requiring fluoridation to be based on science that is “outdated” and “no longer widely accepted.”⁸

Also this year, the government of the Australian state of Queensland eliminated $14 million in funding for its state-wide fluoridation campaign. The decision, which was executed by the Liberal National Party (LNP) government, forced local councils to vote on whether or not to introduce fluoride to their water supplies. Less than two months after the decision came down, several communities including the town of Cairns halted fluoridation. As a result, nearly 200,000 Australians will no longer be exposed to fluoride in their drinking water.⁹

An ever-growing number of institutions and individuals are questioning the wisdom of fluoridation. At the fore of the movement are thousands of scientific authorities and health care professionals who are speaking out about the hazards of this damaging additive. As of November 2013, a group of over 4549 professionals including 361 dentists and 562 medical doctors have added their names to a petition aimed at ending fluoridation started by the Fluoride Action Network.  Among the prominent signatories are Nobel Laureate Arvid Carlsson and William Marcus, PhD who served as the chief toxicologist of the EPA Water Division.¹⁰

The above sampling of recent news items on fluoride brings into sharp focus just how urgent it is to carry out a critical reassessment of the mass fluoridation campaign that currently affects hundreds of millions of Americans. In order to better understand the massive deception surrounding this toxic chemical, we must look back to the sordid history of how fluoride was first introduced.

How to Market a Toxic Waste

“We would not purposely add arsenic to the water supply. And we would not purposely add lead. But we do add fluoride. The fact is that fluoride is more toxic than lead and just slightly less toxic than arsenic.” ¹¹

These words of Dr. John Yiamouyiannis may come as a shock to you because, if you’re like most Americans, you have positive associations with fluoride. You may envision tooth protection, strong bones, and a government that cares about your dental needs. What you’ve probably never been told is that the fluoride added to drinking water and toothpaste is a crude industrial waste product of the aluminum and fertilizer industries, and a substance toxic enough to be used as rat poison. How is it that Americans have learned to love an environmental hazard? This phenomenon can be attributed to a carefully planned marketing program begun even before Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first community to officially fluoridate its drinking water in 1945. ¹²   As a result of this ongoing campaign, nearly two-thirds of the nation has enthusiastically followed Grand Rapids’ example. But this push for fluoridation has less to do with a concern for America’s health than with industry’s penchant to expand at the expense of our nation’s well-being.

The first thing you have to understand about fluoride is that it’s the problem child of industry. Its toxicity was recognized at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when, in the 1850s iron and copper factories discharged it into the air and poisoned plants, animals, and people.¹³   The problem was exacerbated in the 1920s when rapid industrial growth meant massive pollution. Medical writer Joel Griffiths explains that “it was abundantly clear to both industry and government that spectacular U.S. industrial expansion ­ and the economic and military power and vast profits it promised ­ would necessitate releasing millions of tons of waste fluoride into the environment.”¹⁴  Their biggest fear was that “if serious injury to people were established, lawsuits alone could prove devastating to companies, while public outcry could force industry-wide government regulations, billions in pollution-control costs, and even mandatory changes in high-fluoride raw materials and profitable technologies.” ¹⁵

At first, industry could dispose of fluoride legally only in small amounts by selling it to insecticide and rat poison manufacturers. ¹⁶   Then a commercial outlet was devised in the 1930s when a connection was made between water supplies bearing traces of fluoride and lower rates of tooth decay. Griffiths writes that this was not a scientific breakthrough, but rather part of a “public disinformation campaign” by the aluminum industry “to convince the public that fluoride was safe and good.” Industry’s need prompted Alcoa-funded scientist Gerald J. Cox to announce that “The present trend toward complete removal of fluoride from water may need some reversal.” ¹⁷   Griffiths writes:

“The big news in Cox’s announcement was that this ‘apparently worthless by-product’ had not only been proved safe (in low doses), but actually beneficial; it might reduce cavities in children. A proposal was in the air to add fluoride to the entire nation’s drinking water. While the dose to each individual would be low, ‘fluoridation’ on a national scale would require the annual addition of hundreds of thousands of tons of fluoride to the country’s drinking water.

“Government and industry ­ especially Alcoa ­ strongly supported intentional water fluoridation… [it] made possible a master public relations stroke ­ one that could keep scientists and the public off fluoride’s case for years to come. If the leaders of dentistry, medicine, and public health could be persuaded to endorse fluoride in the public’s drinking water, proclaiming to the nation that there was a ‘wide margin of safety,’ how were they going to turn around later and say industry’s fluoride pollution was dangerous?

“As for the public, if fluoride could be introduced as a health enhancing substance that should be added to the environment for the children’s sake, those opposing it would look like quacks and lunatics….

“Back at the Mellon Institute, Alcoa’s Pittsburgh Industrial research lab, this news was galvanic. Alcoa-sponsored biochemist Gerald J. Cox immediately fluoridated some lab rats in a study and concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and that ‘The case should be regarded as proved.’ In a historic moment in 1939, the first public proposal that the U.S. should fluoridate its water supplies was made ­ not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an industry scientist working for a company threatened by fluoride damage claims.” ¹⁸

Once the plan was put into action, industry was buoyant. They had finally found the channel for fluoride that they were looking for, and they were even cheered on by dentists, government agencies, and the public. Chemical Week, a publication for the chemical industry, described the tenor of the times: “All over the country, slide rules are getting warm as waterworks engineers figure the cost of adding fluoride to their water supplies.” They are riding a trend urged upon them, by the U.S. Public Health Service, the American Dental Association, the State Dental Health Directors, various state and local health bodies, and vocal women’s clubs from coast to coast. It adds up to a nice piece of business on all sides and many firms are cheering the PHS and similar groups as they plump for increasing adoption of fluoridation.” ¹⁹

Such overwhelming acceptance allowed government and industry to proceed hastily, albeit irresponsibly. The Grand Rapids experiment was supposed to take 15 years, during which time health benefits and hazards were to be studied. In 1946, however, just one year into the experiment, six more U.S. cities adopted the process. By 1947, 87 more communities were treated; popular demand was the official reason for this unscientific haste.

The general public and its leaders did support the cause, but only after a massive government public relations campaign spearheaded by Edward L. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud. Bernays, a public relations pioneer who has been called “the original spin doctor,” ²⁰  was a masterful PR strategist. As a result of his influence, Griffiths writes, “Almost overnight…the popular image of fluoride ­ which at the time was being widely sold as rat and bug poison ­ became that of a beneficial provider of gleaming smiles, absolutely safe, and good for children, bestowed by a benevolent paternal government. Its opponents were permanently engraved on the public mind as crackpots and right-wing loonies.” ²¹

Griffiths explains that while opposition to fluoridation is usually associated with right-wingers, this picture is not totally accurate. He provides an interesting historical perspective on the anti-fluoridation stance:

“Fluoridation attracted opponents from every point on the continuum of politics and sanity. The prospect of the government mass-medicating the water supplies with a well-known rat poison to prevent a nonlethal disease flipped the switches of delusionals across the country ­ as well as generating concern among responsible scientists, doctors, and citizens.

“Moreover, by a fortuitous twist of circumstances, fluoride’s natural opponents on the left were alienated from the rest of the opposition. Oscar Ewing, a Federal Security Agency administrator, was a Truman “fair dealer” who pushed many progressive programs such as nationalized medicine. Fluoridation was lumped with his proposals. Inevitably, it was attacked by conservatives as a manifestation of “creeping socialism,” while the left rallied to its support. Later during the McCarthy era, the left was further alienated from the opposition when extreme right-wing groups, including the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, raved that fluoridation was a plot by the Soviet Union and/or communists in the government to poison America’s brain cells.

“It was a simple task for promoters, under the guidance of the ‘original spin doctor,’ to paint all opponents as deranged ­ and they played this angle to the hilt….

“Actually, many of the strongest opponents originally started out as proponents, but changed their minds after a close look at the evidence. And many opponents came to view fluoridation not as a communist plot, but simply as a capitalist-style con job of epic proportions. Some could be termed early environmentalists, such as the physicians George L. Waldbott and Frederick B. Exner, who first documented government-industry complicity in hiding the hazards of fluoride pollution from the public. Waldbott and Exner risked their careers in a clash with fluoride defenders, only to see their cause buried in toothpaste ads.” ²²

By 1950, fluoridation’s image was a sterling one, and there was not much science could do at this point. The Public Health Service was fluoridation’s main source of funding as well as its promoter, and therefore caught in a fundamental conflict of interest. ¹²   If fluoridation were found to be unsafe and ineffective, and laws were repealed, the organization feared a loss of face, since scientists, politicians, dental groups, and physicians unanimously supported it. ²³  For this reason, studies concerning its effects were not undertaken. The Oakland Tribune noted this when it stated that “public health officials have often suppressed scientific doubts” about fluoridation.²⁴ Waldbott sums up the situation when he says that from the beginning, the controversy over fluoridating water supplies was “a political, not a scientific health issue.”²⁵

The marketing of fluoride continues. In a 1983 letter from the Environmental Protection Agency, then Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water, Rebecca Hammer, writes that the EPA “regards [fluoridation] as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them.” ²⁶    A 1992 policy statement from the Department of Health and Human Services says, “A recent comprehensive PHS review of the benefits and potential health risks of fluoride has concluded that the practice of fluoridating community water supplies is safe and effective.” ²⁷

According to the CDC website, about 200 million Americans in 16,500 communities are exposed to fluoridated water. Out of the 50 largest cities in the US, 43 have fluoridated water. ²⁸

To help celebrate fluoride’s widespread use, the media recently reported on the 50th anniversary of fluoridation in Grand Rapids. Newspaper articles titled “Fluoridation: a shining public health success” ²⁹  and “After 50 years, fluoride still works with a smile”  ³⁰  painted glowing pictures of the practice. Had investigators looked more closely, though, they might have learned that children in Muskegon, Michigan, an unfluoridated “control” city, had equal drops in dental decay. They might also have learned of the other studies that dispute the supposed wonders of fluoride.

The Fluoride Myth Doesn’t Hold Water

The big hope for fluoride was its ability to immunize children’s developing teeth against cavities. Rates of dental caries were supposed to plummet in areas where water was treated. Yet decades of experience and worldwide research have contradicted this expectation numerous times. Here are just a few examples:

In British Columbia, only 11% of the population drinks fluoridated water, as opposed to 40-70% in other Canadian regions. Yet British Columbia has the lowest rate of tooth decay in Canada. In addition, the lowest rates of dental caries within the province are found in areas that do not have their water supplies fluoridated. ³¹

According to a Sierra Club study, people in unfluoridated developing nations have fewer dental caries than those living in industrialized nations. As a result, they conclude that “fluoride is not essential to dental health.” ³²

In 1986-87, the largest study on fluoridation and tooth decay ever was performed. The subjects were 39,000 school children between 5 and 17 living in 84 areas around the country. A third of the places were fluoridated, a third were partially fluoridated, and a third were not. Results indicate no statistically significant differences in dental decay between fluoridated and unfluoridated cities. ³³

A World Health Organization survey reports a decline of dental decay in western Europe, which is 98% unfluoridated. They state that western Europe’s declining dental decay rates are equal to and sometimes better than those in the U.S. ³⁴

A 1992 University of Arizona study yielded surprising results when they found that “the more fluoride a child drinks, the more cavities appear in the teeth.” ³⁵

Although all Native American reservations are fluoridated, children living there have much higher incidences of dental decay and other oral health problems than do children living in other U.S. communities. ³⁶

In light of all the evidence, fluoride proponents now make more modest claims. For example, in 1988, the ADA professed that a 40- to 60% cavity reduction could be achieved with the help of fluoride. Now they claim an 18- to 25% reduction. Other promoters mention a 12% decline in tooth decay.

And some former supporters are even beginning to question the need for fluoridation altogether. In 1990, a National Institute for Dental Research report stated that “it is likely that if caries in children remain at low levels or decline further, the necessity of continuing the current variety and extent of fluoride-based prevention programs will be questioned.” ³⁷

Most government agencies, however, continue to ignore the scientific evidence and to market fluoridation by making fictional claims about its benefits and pushing for its expansion. For instance, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “National surveys of oral health dating back several decades document continuing decreases in tooth decay in children, adults and senior citizens. Nevertheless, there are parts of the country and particular populations that remain without protection. For these reasons, the U.S. PHS…has set a national goal for the year 2000 that 75% of persons served by community water systems will have access to optimally fluoridated drinking water; currently this figure is just about 60%. The year 2000 target goal is both desirable and yet challenging, based on past progress and continuing evidence of effectiveness and safety of this public health measure.” ³⁸

This statement is flawed on several accounts. First, as we’ve seen, research does not support the effectiveness of fluoridation for preventing tooth disease. Second, purported benefits are supposedly for children, not adults and senior citizens. At about age 13, any advantage fluoridation might offer comes to an end, and less than 1% of the fluoridated water supply reaches this population.  And third, fluoridation has never been proven safe. On the contrary, several studies directly link fluoridation to skeletal fluorosis, dental fluorosis, and several rare forms of cancer. This alone should frighten us away from its use.

Biological Safety Concerns

Only a small margin separates supposedly beneficial fluoride levels from amounts that are known to cause adverse effects. Dr. James Patrick, a former antibiotics research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, describes the predicament:

“[There is] a very low margin of safety involved in fluoridating water. A concentration of about 1 ppm is recommended…in several countries, severe fluorosis has been documented from water supplies containing only 2 or 3 ppm. In the development of drugs…we generally insist on a therapeutic index (margin of safety) of the order of 100; a therapeutic index of 2 or 3 is totally unacceptable, yet that is what has been proposed for public water supplies.”³⁹ 

Other countries argue that even 1 ppm is not a safe concentration. Canadian studies, for example, imply that children under three should have no fluoride whatsoever. The Journal of the Canadian Dental Association states that “Fluoride supplements should not be recommended for children less than 3 years old.” ⁴⁰   Since these supplements contain the same amount of fluoride as water does, they are basically saying that children under the age of three shouldn’t be drinking fluoridated water at all, under any circumstances. Japan has reduced the amount of fluoride in their drinking water to one-eighth of what is recommended in the U.S. Instead of 1 milligram per liter, they use less than 15 hundredths of a milligram per liter as the upper limit allowed. ⁴¹

Even supposing that low concentrations are safe, there is no way to control how much fluoride different people consume, as some take in a lot more than others. For example, laborers, athletes, diabetics, and those living in hot or dry regions can all be expected to drink more water, and therefore more fluoride (in fluoridated areas) than others. ⁴²   Due to such wide variations in water consumption, it is impossible to scientifically control what dosage of fluoride a person receives via the water supply.⁴³

Another concern is that fluoride is not found only in drinking water; it is everywhere. Fluoride is found in foods that are processed with it, which, in the United States, include nearly all bottled drinks and canned foods. ⁴⁴  Researchers writing in The Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry have found that fruit juices, in particular, contain significant amounts of fluoride. In one study, a variety of popular juices and juice blends were analyzed and it was discovered that 42% of the samples examined had more than l ppm of fluoride, with some brands of grape juice containing much higher levels ­ up to 6.8 ppm! The authors cite the common practice of using fluoride-containing insecticide in growing grapes as a factor in these high levels, and they suggest that the fluoride content of beverages be printed on their labels, as is other nutritional information. ⁴⁵  Considering how much juice some children ingest, and the fact that youngsters often insist on particular brands that they consume day after day, labeling seems like a prudent idea. But beyond this is the larger issue that this study brings up: Is it wise to subject children and others who are heavy juice drinkers to additional fluoride in their water?

Here’s a little-publicized reality: Cooking can greatly increase a food’s fluoride content. Peas, for example, contain 12 micrograms of fluoride when raw and 1500 micrograms after they are cooked in fluoridated water, which is a tremendous difference. Also, we should keep in mind that fluoride is an ingredient in pharmaceuticals, aerosols, insecticides, and pesticides.

And of course, toothpastes. It’s interesting to note that in the 1950s, fluoridated toothpastes were required to carry warnings on their labels saying that they were not to be used in areas where water was already fluoridated. Crest toothpaste went so far as to write: “Caution: Children under 6 should not use Crest.” These regulations were dropped in 1958, although no new research was available to prove that the overdose hazard no longer existed. ⁴⁶

Today, common fluoride levels in toothpaste are 1000 ppm. Research chemist Woodfun Ligon notes that swallowing a small amount adds substantially to fluoride intake. ⁴⁷ Dentists say that children commonly ingest up to 0.5 mg of fluoride a day from toothpaste. ⁴⁸

This inevitably raises another issue: How safe is all this fluoride? According to scientists and informed doctors, such as Dr. John Lee, it is not safe at all. Dr. Lee first took an anti-fluoridation stance back in 1972, when as chairman of an environmental health committee for a local medical society, he was asked to state their position on the subject. He stated that after investigating the references given by both pro- and anti-fluoridationists, the group discovered three important things:

“One, the claims of benefit of fluoride, the 60% reduction of cavities, was not established by any of these studies. Two, we found that the investigations into the toxic side effects of fluoride have not been done in any way that was acceptable. And three, we discovered that the estimate of the amount of fluoride in the food chain, in the total daily fluoride intake, had been measured in 1943, and not since then. By adding the amount of fluoride that we now have in the food chain, which comes from food processing with fluoridated water, plus all the fluoridated toothpaste that was not present in 1943, we found that the daily intake of fluoride was far in excess of what was considered optimal.” ⁴⁹

What happens when fluoride intake exceeds the optimal? The inescapable fact is that this substance has been associated with severe health problems, ranging from skeletal and dental fluorosis to bone fractures, to fluoride poisoning, and even to cancer.

Skeletal Fluorosis

When fluoride is ingested, approximately 93% of it is absorbed into the bloodstream. A good part of the material is excreted, but the rest is deposited in the bones and teeth, and is capable of causing a crippling skeletal fluorosis. This is a condition that can damage the musculoskeletal and nervous systems and result in muscle wasting, limited joint motion, spine deformities, and calcification of the ligaments, as well as neurological deficits.

Large numbers of people in Japan, China, India, the Middle East, and Africa have been diagnosed with skeletal fluorosis from drinking naturally fluoridated water. In India alone, nearly a million people suffer from the affliction. ³⁹   While only a dozen cases of skeletal fluorosis have been reported in the United States, Chemical and Engineering News states that “critics of the EPA standard speculate that there probably have been many more cases of fluorosis ­ even crippling fluorosis ­ than the few reported in the literature because most doctors in the U.S. have not studied the disease and do not know how to diagnose it.” ⁵⁰

Radiologic changes in bone occur when fluoride exposure is 5 mg/day, according to the late Dr. George Waldbott, author of Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma. While this 5 mg/day level is the amount of fluoride ingested by most people living in fluoridated areas, ⁵¹   the number increases for diabetics and laborers, who can ingest up to 20 mg of fluoride daily. In addition, a survey conducted by the Department of Agriculture shows that 3% of the U.S. population drinks 4 liters or more of water every day. If these individuals live in areas where the water contains a fluoride level of 4 ppm, allowed by the EPA, they are ingesting 16 mg/day from the consumption of water alone, and are thus at greater risk for getting skeletal fluorosis. ⁵²

Dental Fluorosis

According to a 1989 National Institute for Dental Research study, 1-2% of children living in areas fluoridated at 1 ppm develop dental fluorosis, that is, permanently stained, brown mottled teeth. Up to 23% of children living in areas naturally fluoridated at 4 ppm develop severe dental fluorosis. ⁵³  Other research gives higher figures. The publication Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, put out by the National Academy of Sciences, reports that in areas with optimally fluoridated water (1 ppm, either natural or added), dental fluorosis levels in recent years ranged from 8 to 51%. Recently, a prevalence of slightly over 80% was reported in children 12-14 years old in Augusta, Georgia.

Fluoride is a noteworthy chemical additive in that its officially acknowledged benefit and damage levels are about the same. Writing in The Progressive, science journalist Daniel Grossman elucidates this point: “Though many beneficial chemicals are dangerous when consumed at excessive levels, fluoride is unique because the amount that dentists recommend to prevent cavities is about the same as the amount that causes dental fluorosis.” ⁵⁴   Although the American Dental Association and the government consider dental fluorosis only a cosmetic problem, the American Journal of Public Health says that “…brittleness of moderately and severely mottled teeth may be associated with elevated caries levels.” ⁴⁵   In other words, in these cases the fluoride is causing the exact problem that it’s supposed to prevent. Yiamouyiannis adds, “In highly naturally-fluoridated areas, the teeth actually crumble as a result. These are the first visible symptoms of fluoride poisoning.” ⁵⁵

Also, when considering dental fluorosis, there are factors beyond the physical that you can’t ignore ­ the negative psychological effects of having moderately to severely mottled teeth. These were recognized in a 1984 National Institute of Mental Health panel that looked into this problem. 

A telling trend is that TV commercials for toothpaste, and toothpaste tubes themselves, are now downplaying fluoride content as a virtue. This was noted in an article in the Sarasota/Florida ECO Report, ⁵⁶ whose author, George Glasser, feels that manufacturers are distancing themselves from the additive because of fears of lawsuits. The climate is ripe for these, and Glasser points out that such a class action suit has already been filed in England against the manufacturers of fluoride-containing products on behalf of children suffering from dental fluorosis.

Bone Fractures

At one time, fluoride therapy was recommended for building denser bones and preventing fractures associated with osteoporosis. Now several articles in peer-reviewed journals suggest that fluoride actually causes more harm than good, as it is associated with bone breakage. Three studies reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association showed links between hip fractures and fluoride. ⁵⁷⁵⁸⁵⁹ Findings here were, for instance, that there is “a small but significant increase in the risk of hip fractures in both men and women exposed to artificial fluoridation at 1 ppm.”   In addition, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that people given fluoride to cure their osteoporosis actually wound up with an increased nonvertebral fracture rate. ⁶⁰  Austrian researchers have also found that fluoride tablets make bones more susceptible to fractures.⁶¹ The U.S. National Research Council states that the U.S. hip fracture rate is now the highest in the world. ⁶²

Louis V. Avioli, professor at the Washington University School of Medicine, says in a 1987 review of the subject: “Sodium fluoride therapy is accompanied by so many medical complications and side effects that it is hardly worth exploring in depth as a therapeutic mode for postmenopausal osteoporosis, since it fails to decrease the propensity for hip fractures and increases the incidence of stress fractures in the extremities.” ⁶³

Fluoride Poisoning

In May 1992, 260 people were poisoned, and one man died, in Hooper Bay, Alaska, after drinking water contaminated with 150 ppm of fluoride. The accident was attributed to poor equipment and an unqualified operator. ⁵⁵   Was this a fluke? Not at all. Over the years, the CDC has recorded several incidents of excessive fluoride permeating the water supply and sickening or killing people. We don’t usually hear about these occurrences in news reports, but interested citizens have learned the truth from data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Here is a partial list of toxic spills we have not been told about:

July 1993 ­ Chicago, Illinois: Three dialysis patients died and five experienced toxic reactions to the fluoridated water used in the treatment process. The CDC was asked to investigate, but to date there have been no press releases.

May 1993 ­ Kodiak, Alaska (Old Harbor): The population was warned not to consume water due to high fluoride levels. They were also cautioned against boiling the water, since this concentrates the substance and worsens the danger. Although equipment appeared to be functioning normally, 22-24 ppm of fluoride was found in a sample.

July 1992 ­ Marin County, California: A pump malfunction allowed too much fluoride into the Bon Tempe treatment plant. Two million gallons of fluoridated water were diverted to Phoenix Lake, elevating the lake surface by more than two inches and forcing some water over the spillway.

December 1991 ­ Benton Harbor, Michigan: A faulty pump allowed approximately 900 gallons of hydrofluosilicic acid to leak into a chemical storage building at the water plant. City engineer Roland Klockow stated, “The concentrated hydrofluosilicic acid was so corrosive that it ate through more than two inches of concrete in the storage building.” This water did not reach water consumers, but fluoridation was stopped until June 1993. The original equipment was only two years old.

July 1991 ­ Porgate, Michigan: After a fluoride injector pump failed, fluoride levels reached 92 ppm and resulted in approximately 40 children developing abdominal pains, sickness, vomiting, and diarrhea at a school arts and crafts show.

November 1979 ­ Annapolis, Maryland: One patient died and eight became ill after renal dialysis treatment. Symptoms included cardiac arrest (resuscitated), hypotension, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and a whole gamut of intestinal problems. Patients not on dialysis also reported nausea, headaches, cramps, diarrhea, and dizziness. The fluoride level was later found to be 35 ppm; the problem was traced to a valve at a water plant that had been left open all night. ⁶⁴

Instead of addressing fluoridation’s problematic safety record, officials have chosen to cover it up. For example, the ADA says in one booklet distributed to health agencies that “Fluoride feeders are designed to stop operating when a malfunction occurs… so prolonged over-fluoridation becomes a mechanical impossibility.”    In addition, the information that does reach the population after an accident is woefully inaccurate. A spill in Annapolis, Maryland, placed thousands at risk, but official reports reduced the number to eight. ⁶⁵  Perhaps officials are afraid they will invite more lawsuits like the one for $480 million by the wife of a dialysis patient who became brain-injured as the result of fluoride poisoning.

Not all fluoride poisoning is accidental. For decades, industry has knowingly released massive quantities of fluoride into the air and water. Disenfranchised communities, with people least able to fight back, are often the victims. Medical writer Joel Griffiths relays this description of what industrial pollution can do, in this case to a devastatingly poisoned Indian reservation:

“Cows crawled around the pasture on their bellies, inching along like giant snails. So crippled by bone disease they could not stand up, this was the only way they could graze. Some died kneeling, after giving birth to stunted calves. Others kept on crawling until, no longer able to chew because their teeth had crumbled down to the nerves, they began to starve….” They were the cattle of the Mohawk Indians on the New York-Canadian St. Regis Reservation during the period 1960-1975, when industrial pollution devastated the herd ­ and along with it, the Mohawks’ way of life….Mohawk children, too, have shown signs of damage to bones and teeth.” ⁶⁶

Mohawks filed suit against the Reynolds Metals Company and the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) in 1960, but ended up settling out of court, where they received $650,000 for their cows. ⁶⁷

Fluoride is one of industry’s major pollutants, and no one remains immune to its effects. In 1989, 155,000 tons were being released annually into the air,    and 500,000 tons a year were disposed of in our lakes, rivers, and oceans. ⁶⁸

Cancer

Numerous studies demonstrate links between fluoridation and cancer; however, agencies promoting fluoride consistently refute or cover up these findings.

In 1977, Dr. John Yiamouyiannis and Dr. Dean Burk, former chief chemist at the National Cancer Institute, released a study that linked fluoridation to 10,000 cancer deaths per year in the U.S. Their inquiry, which compared cancer deaths in the ten largest fluoridated American cities to those in the ten largest unfluoridated cities between 1940 and 1950, discovered a 5% greater rate in the fluoridated areas. ⁶⁹  The NCI disputed these findings, since an earlier analysis of theirs apparently failed to pick up these extra deaths. Federal authorities claimed that Yiamouyiannis and Burk were in error, and that any increase was caused by statistical changes over the years in age, gender, and racial composition. ⁷⁰

In order to settle the question of whether or not fluoride is a carcinogen, a Congressional subcommittee instructed the National Toxicology Program (NTP) to perform another investigation. ⁷¹  That study, due in 1980, was not released until 1990. However, in 1986, while the study was delayed, the EPA raised the standard fluoride level in drinking water from 2.4 to 4 ppm. ⁷²   After this step, some of the government’s own employees in NFFE Local 2050 took what the Oakland Tribune termed the “remarkable step of denouncing that action as political.” ⁷³

When the NTP study results became known in early 1990, union president Dr. Robert Carton, who works in the EPA’s Toxic Substances Division, published a statement. It read, in part: “Four years ago, NFFE Local 2050, which represents all 1100 professionals at EPA headquarters, alerted then Administrator Lee Thomas to the fact that the scientific support documents for the fluoride in drinking water standard were fatally flawed. The fluoride juggernaut proceeded as it apparently had for the last 40 years ­ without any regard for the facts or concern for public health.

“EPA raised the allowed level of fluoride before the results of the rat/mouse study ordered by Congress in 1977 was complete. Today, we find out how irresponsible that decision was. The results reported by NTP, and explained today by Dr. Yiamouyiannis, are, as he notes, not surprising considering the vast amount of data that caused the animal study to be conducted in the first place. The results are not surprising to NFFE Local 2050 either. Four years ago we realized that the claim that there was no evidence that fluoride could cause genetic effects or cancer could not be supported by the shoddy document thrown together by the EPA contractor.

“It was apparent to us that EPA bowed to political pressure without having done an in-depth, independent analysis, using in-house experts, of the currently existing data that show fluoride causes genetic effects, promotes the growth of cancerous tissue, and is likely to cause cancer in humans. If EPA had done so, it would have been readily apparent ­ as it was to Congress in 1977 ­ that there were serious reasons to believe in a cancer threat.

“The behavior by EPA in this affair raises questions about the integrity of science at EPA and the role of professional scientists, lawyers and engineers who provide the interpretation of the available data and the judgements necessary to protect the public health and the environment. Are scientists at EPA there to arrange facts to fit preconceived conclusions? Does the Agency have a responsibility to develop world-class experts in the risks posed by chemicals we are exposed to every day, or is it permissible for EPA to cynically shop around for contractors who will provide them the ‘correct’ answers?” ⁷⁴
What were the NTP study results? Out of 130 male rats that ingested 45 to 79 ppm of fluoride, 5 developed osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer. There were cases, in both males and females at those doses, of squamous cell carcinoma in the mouth. ⁷⁵  Both rats and mice had dose-related fluorosis of the teeth, and female rats suffered osteosclerosis of the long bones.⁷⁶

When Yiamouyiannis analyzed the same data, he found mice with a particularly rare form of liver cancer, known as hepatocholangiocarcinoma. This cancer is so rare, according to Yiamouyiannis, that the odds of its appearance in this study by chance are 1 in 2 million in male mice and l in 100,000 in female mice.    He also found precancerous changes in oral squamous cells, an increase in squamous cell tumors and cancers, and thyroid follicular cell tumors as a result of increasing levels of fluoride in drinking water. ⁷⁷

A March 13, 1990, New York Times article commented on the NTP findings: “Previous animal tests suggesting that water fluoridation might pose risks to humans have been widely discounted as technically flawed, but the latest investigation carefully weeded out sources of experimental or statistical error, many scientists say, and cannot be discounted.” ⁷⁸  In the same article, biologist Dr. Edward Groth notes: “The importance of this study…is that it is the first fluoride bioassay giving positive results in which the latest state-of-the-art procedures have been rigorously applied. It has to be taken seriously.” ⁷¹

On February 22, 1990, the Medical Tribune, an international medical news weekly received by 125,000 doctors, offered the opinion of a federal scientist who preferred to remain anonymous:

“It is difficult to see how EPA can fail to regulate fluoride as a carcinogen in light of what NTP has found. Osteosarcomas are an extremely unusual result in rat carcinogenicity tests. Toxicologists tell me that the only other substance that has produced this is radium….The fact that this is a highly atypical form of cancer implicates fluoride as the cause. Also, the osteosarcomas appeared to be dose-related, and did not occur in controls, making it a clean study.” ⁷⁹

Public health officials were quick to assure a concerned public that there was nothing to worry about! The ADA said the occurrence of cancers in the lab may not be relevant to humans since the level of fluoridation in the experimental animals’ water was so high. ⁸⁰   But the Federal Register, which is the handbook of government practices, disagrees: “The high exposure of experimental animals to toxic agents is a necessary and valid method of discovering possible carcinogenic hazards in man. To disavow the findings of this test would be to disavow those of all such tests, since they are all conducted according to this standard.” ⁷³   As a February 5, 1990, Newsweek article pointed out, “such megadosing is standard toxicological practice. It’s the only way to detect an effect without using an impossibly large number of test animals to stand in for the humans exposed to the substance.” ⁸¹ And as the Safer Water Foundation explains, higher doses are generally administered to test animals to compensate for the animals’ shorter life span and because humans are generally more vulnerable than test animals on a body-weight basis. ⁸²

Several other studies link fluoride to genetic damage and cancer. An article in Mutation Research says that a study by Proctor and Gamble, the very company that makes Crest toothpaste, did research showing that 1 ppm fluoride causes genetic damage.⁸³ Results were never published but Proctor and Gamble called them “clean,” meaning animals were supposedly free of malignant tumors. Not so, according to scientists who believe some of the changes observed in test animals could be interpreted as precancerous. ⁸⁴   Yiamouyiannis says the Public Health Service sat on the data, which were finally released via a Freedom of Information Act request in 1989. “Since they are biased, they have tried to cover up harmful effects,” he says. “But the data speaks for itself. Half the amount of fluoride that is found in the New York City drinking water causes genetic damage.” ⁴⁶

A National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences publication, Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, also linked fluoride to genetic toxicity when it stated that “in cultured human and rodent cells, the weight of evidence leads to the conclusion that fluoride exposure results in increased chromosome aberrations.” ⁸⁵ The result of this is not only birth defects but the mutation of normal cells into cancer cells. The Journal of Carcinogenesis further states that “fluoride not only has the ability to transform normal cells into cancer cells but also to enhance the cancer-causing properties of other chemicals.” ⁸⁶

Surprisingly, the PHS put out a report called Review of fluoride: benefits and risks, in which they showed a substantially higher incidence of bone cancer in young men exposed to fluoridated water compared to those who were not. The New Jersey Department of Health also found that the risk of bone cancer was about three times as high in fluoridated areas as in nonfluoridated areas. ⁸⁷

Despite cover-up attempts, the light of knowledge is filtering through to some enlightened scientists. Regarding animal test results, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, James Huff, does say that “the reason these animals got a few osteosarcomas was because they were given fluoride…Bone is the target organ for fluoride.”  Toxicologist William Marcus adds that “fluoride is a carcinogen by any standard we use. I believe EPA should act immediately to protect the public, not just on the cancer data, but on the evidence of bone fractures, arthritis, mutagenicity, and other effects.” ⁸⁸

The Challenge of Eliminating Fluoride

Given all the scientific challenges to the idea of the safety of fluoride, why does it remain a protected contaminant? As Susan Pare of the Center for Health Action asks, “…even if fluoride in the water did reduce tooth decay, which it does not, how can the EPA allow a substance more toxic than Alar, red dye #3, and vinyl chloride to be injected purposely into drinking water?” ⁸⁹

This is certainly a logical question and, with all the good science that seems to exist on the subject, you would think that there would be a great deal of interest in getting fluoride out of our water supply. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. As Dr. William Marcus, a senior science advisor in the EPA’s Office of Drinking Water, has found, the top governmental priority has been to sweep the facts under the rug and, if need be, to suppress truth-tellers. Marcus explains ⁹⁰  that fluoride is one of the chemicals the EPA specifically regulates, and that he was following the data coming in on fluoride very carefully when a determination was going to be made on whether the levels should be changed. He discovered that the data were not being heeded. But that was only the beginning of the story for him. Marcus recounts what happened:

“The studies that were done by Botel Northwest showed that there was an increased level of bone cancer and other types of cancer in animals….in that same study, there were very rare liver cancers, according to the board-certified veterinary pathologists at the contractor, Botel. Those really were very upsetting because they were hepatocholangeal carcinomas, very rare liver cancers….Then there were several other kinds of cancers that were found in the jaw and other places.

“I felt at that time that the reports were alarming. They showed that the levels of fluoride that can cause cancers in animals are actually lower than those levels ingested in people (who take lower amounts but for longer periods of time).

“I went to a meeting that was held in Research Triangle Park, in April 1990, in which the National Toxicology Program was presenting their review of the study. I went with several colleagues of mine, one of whom was a board-certified veterinary pathologist who originally reported hepatocholangeal carcinoma as a separate entity in rats and mice. I asked him if he would look at the slides to see if that really was a tumor or if the pathologists at Botel had made an error. He told me after looking at the slides that, in fact, it was correct.

“At the meeting, every one of the cancers reported by the contractor had been downgraded by the National Toxicology Program. I have been in the toxicology business looking at studies of this nature for nearly 25 years and I have never before seen every single cancer endpoint downgraded…. I found that very suspicious and went to see an investigator in the Congress at the suggestion of my friend, Bob Carton. This gentleman and his staff investigated very thoroughly and found out that the scientists at the National Toxicology Program down at Research Triangle Park had been coerced by their superiors to change their findings.”⁹¹

Once Dr. Marcus acted on his findings, something ominous started to happen in his life: “…I wrote an internal memorandum and gave it to my supervisors. I waited for a month without hearing anything. Usually, you get a feedback in a week or so. I wrote another memorandum to a person who was my second-line supervisor explaining that if there was even a slight chance of increased cancer in the general population, since 140 million people were potentially ingesting this material, that the deaths could be in the many thousands. Then I gave a copy of the memorandum to the Fluoride Work Group, who waited some time and then released it to the press.

“Once it got into the press all sorts of things started happening at EPA. I was getting disciplinary threats, being isolated, and all kinds of things which ultimately resulted in them firing me on March 15, 1992.” 

In order to be reinstated at work, Dr. Marcus took his case to court. In the process, he learned that the government had engaged in various illegal activities, including 70 felony counts, in order to get him fired. At the same time, those who committed perjury were not held accountable for it. In fact, they were rewarded for their efforts:

“When we finally got the EPA to the courtroom…they admitted to doing several things to get me fired. We had notes of a meeting…that showed that fluoride was one of the main topics discussed and that it was agreed that they would fire me with the help of the Inspector General. When we got them on the stand and showed them the memoranda, they finally remembered and said, oh yes, we lied about that in our previous statements.

“Then…they admitted to shredding more than 70 documents that they had in hand ­ Freedom of Information requests. That’s a felony…. In addition, they charged me with stealing time from the government. They…tried to show…that I had been doing private work on government time and getting paid for it. When we came to court, I was able to show that the time cards they produced were forged, and forged by the Inspector General’s staff….” 

For all his efforts, Dr. Marcus was rehired, but nothing else has changed: “The EPA was ordered to rehire me, which they did. They were given a whole series of requirements to be met, such as paying me my back pay, restoring my leave, privileges, and sick leave and annual leave. The only thing they’ve done is put me back to work. They haven’t given me any of those things that they were required to do.”⁹²

What is at the core of such ruthless tactics? John Yiamouyiannis feels that the central concern of government is to protect industry, and that the motivating force behind fluoride use is the need of certain businesses to dump their toxic waste products somewhere. They try to be inconspicuous in the disposal process and not make waves. “As is normal, the solution to pollution is dilution. You poison everyone a little bit rather than poison a few people a lot. This way, people don’t know what’s going on.”

Since the Public Health Service has promoted the fluoride myth for over 50 years, they’re concerned about protecting their reputation. So scientists like Dr. Marcus, who know about the dangers, are intimidated into keeping silent. Otherwise, they jeopardize their careers. Dr. John Lee elaborates: “Back in 1943, the PHS staked their professional careers on the benefits and safety of fluoride. It has since become bureaucratized. Any public health official who criticizes fluoride, or even hints that perhaps it was an unwise decision, is at risk of losing his career entirely. This has happened time and time again. Public health officials such as Dr. Gray in British Columbia and Dr. Colquhoun in New Zealand found no benefit from fluoridation. When they reported these results, they immediately lost their careers…. This is what happens ­ the public health officials who speak out against fluoride are at great risk of losing their careers on the spot.” 

Yiamouyiannis adds that for the authorities to admit that they’re wrong would be devastating. “It would show that their reputations really don’t mean that much…. They don’t have the scientific background. As Ralph Nader once said, if they admit they’re wrong on fluoridation, people would ask, and legitimately so, what else have they not told us right?” 

Accompanying a loss in status would be a tremendous loss in revenue. Yiamouyiannis points out that “the indiscriminate careless handling of fluoride has a lot of companies, such as Exxon, U.S. Steel, and Alcoa, making tens of billions of dollars in extra profits at our expense…. For them to go ahead now and admit that this is bad, this presents a problem, a threat, would mean tens of billions of dollars in lost profit because they would have to handle fluoride properly. Fluoride is present in everything from phosphate fertilizers to cracking agents for the petroleum industry.” 

Fluoride could only be legally disposed of at a great cost to industry. As Dr. Bill Marcus explains, “There are prescribed methods for disposal and they’re very expensive. Fluoride is a very potent poison. It’s a registered pesticide, used for killing rats or mice…. If it were to be disposed of, it would require a class-one landfill. That would cost the people who are producing aluminum or fertilizer about $7000+ per 5000- to 6000-gallon truckload to dispose of it. It’s highly corrosive.” 

Another problem is that the U.S. judicial system, even when convinced of the dangers, is powerless to change policy. Yiamouyiannis tells of his involvement in court cases in Pennsylvania and Texas in which, while the judges were convinced that fluoride was a health hazard, they did not have the jurisdiction to grant relief from fluoridation. That would have to be done, it was ultimately found, through the legislative process.    Interestingly, the judiciary seems to have more power to effect change in other countries. Yiamouyiannis states that when he presented the same technical evidence in Scotland, the Scottish court outlawed fluoridation based on the evidence.

Indeed, most of Western Europe has rejected fluoridation on the grounds that it is unsafe. In 1971, after 11 years of testing, Sweden’s Nobel Medical Institute recommended against fluoridation, and the process was banned.⁹³ The Netherlands outlawed the practice in 1976, after 23 years of tests. France decided against it after consulting with its Pasteur Institute⁶⁴   and West Germany, now Germany, rejected the practice because the recommended dosage of 1 ppm was “too close to the dose at which long-term damage to the human body is to be expected.” ⁸⁴   Dr. Lee sums it up: “All of western Europe, except one or two test towns in Spain, has abandoned fluoride as a public health plan. It is not put in the water anywhere. They all established test cities and found that the benefits did not occur and the toxicity was evident.”⁹⁴

Isn’t it time the United States followed Western Europe’s example? While the answer is obvious, it is also apparent that government policy is unlikely to change without public support. We therefore must communicate with legislators, and insist on one of our most precious resources ­ pure, unadulterated drinking water. Yiamouyiannis urges all American people to do so, pointing out that public pressure has gotten fluoride out of the water in places like Los Angeles; Newark and Jersey City in New Jersey; and ⁹⁵Bedford, Massachusetts. ⁴⁶   He emphasizes the immediacy of the problem: “There is no question with regard to fluoridation of public water supplies. It is absolutely unsafe…and should be stopped immediately. This is causing more destruction to human health than any other single substance added purposely or inadvertently to the water supply. We’re talking about 35,000 excess deaths a year…10,000 cancer deaths a year…130 million people who are being chronically poisoned. We’re not talking about dropping dead after drinking a glass of fluoridated water…. It takes its toll on human health and life, glass after glass.” ⁹⁶

There is also a moral issue in the debate that has largely escaped notice. According to columnist James Kilpatrick, it is “the right of each person to control the drugs he or she takes.” Kilpatrick calls fluoridation compulsory mass medication, a procedure that violates the principles of medical ethics. ⁹⁷   A New York Times editorial agrees:

“In light of the uncertainty, critics [of fluoridation] argue that administrative bodies are unjustified in imposing fluoridation on communities without obtaining public consent…. The real issue here is not just the scientific debate. The question is whether any establishment has the right to decide that benefits outweigh risks and impose involuntary medication on an entire population. In the case of fluoridation, the dental establishment has made opposition to fluoridation seem intellectually disreputable. Some people regard that as tyranny.” ⁹⁸

Source: Dr. Gary Null, PhD

Watch Out Alternative Media: LAX Shooter Paul Ciancia Branded A Conspiracy Theorist

The demonization of free thinking individuals is about to begin. By branding Paul Ciancia a conspiracy theorist, all of us will come under scrutiny.

Anyone who does not believe wholeheartedly in the crap the government tries to feed them on a daily basis will become a danger to society.

It stands to reason that after a major public incidence of violence such as mass shootings or bombings, people want answers. It’s right and proper that these cases are investigated and as many answers as possible are provided to the citizens of this country.

Having said that, an alarming pattern is emerging.

Some events are highlighted and get massive coverage on television, on the Internet and in the newspapers, but most incidents do not.

Those that can’t be ‘spun’ by the government are given a couple of lines in the papers or a minute of airtime, and that’s it. Done. Gone. Forgotten.

The events that can be used by the government, get acres of print space and constant news coverage. In addition they always have a reason behind them that benefits the government in some way.

Let me show you what I mean. In 2012 88 people were killed in mass shootings in the United States. Sixteen mass shootings with 88 deaths.(source) Here’s the list:

February 22, 2012: Five people were killed in at a Korean health spa in Norcross, Georgia, when a man opened fire inside the facility in an act suspected to be related to domestic violence.

February 26, 2012: Multiple gunmen began firing into a nightclub in Jackson, Tennessee, killing one person and injuring 20 others.

February 27, 2012: Three students at Chardon High School in rural Ohio were killed when a classmate opened fire.

March 8, 2012: Two people were killed and seven wounded at a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when a gunman entered the hospital with two semiautomatic handguns and began firing.

March 31, 2012: A gunman opened fire on a crowd of mourners at a North Miami, Florida funeral home, killing two people and injuring 12 others.

April 2, 2012: A 43-year-old former student at Oikos University in Oakland, California walked into his former school and killed seven people, “execution-style.” Three people were wounded.

April 6, 2012: Two men went on a deadly shooting spree in Tulsa, Oklahoma shooting black men at random in an apparently racially motivated attack. Three men died, and two were wounded.

May 29, 2012: A man in Seattle, Washington opened fire in a coffee shop killing five people and then himself.

July 9, 2012: At a soccer tournament in Wilmington, Delaware, three people were killed, including a 16-year-old player and the event organizer when multiple gunmen began firing shots, apparently targeting the organizer.

July 20, 2012: James Holmes enters a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opens fire with a semi-automatic weapon; twelve people are killed, and fifty-eight are wounded.

August 5, 2012: A white supremacist and Army veteran shot six people to death inside a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin before killing himself.

August 14, 2012: Three people were killed at Texas A&M University when a 35-year-old man went on a shooting rampage; one of the dead was a police officer.

September 27, 2012: A 36-year-old man who had just been laid off from Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota entered his former workplace and shot five people to deathand wounded three others before killing himself.

October 21, 2012: 45-year-old Radcliffe Frankin Haughton shot three women to death, including his wife, Zina Haughton, and injured four others at a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin before killing himself.

December 11, 2012: A 22-year-old began shooting at random at a mall near Portland, Oregonkilling two people and then himself.

December 14, 2012: One man, and possibly more, murders a reported twenty-six people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, including twenty children, before killing himself.

2013 is looking very similar, those cases that got/get airtime are the  case back in February, the Boston Bombings in April, the Navy Yard shooting in September, and of course the incident at LAX. There are other cases that in total killed over 30 people (source) but they didn’t have the required ‘spin’ factor so they have not stayed in the news.

All the cases that have made it big, news wise, have had a message from the government to us. These cases were chosen by the government to highlight the need for more gun control, more surveillance and tighter security. I believe that the ‘evidence’ for these events was tailored. Tailored to suit the government’s needs at the time. To give the public a reason for the measures that will be imposed to ‘solve’ the problem. It was spun and nipped and tucked and most likely bears no resemblance to the original reasons behind the act.

With the LAX shooting they have gone a step further. In addition to once again raising the issue of privately owned assault rifles, they have put terms like ‘New World Order’ and ‘fiat currency’ into the wider public domain.

They are pre-conditioning the wider public in subjects usually confined to alternative media.The average Joe on the street is not familiar with these terms. But now the government itself has introduced them. They have publicly acknowledged them and linked them to the term ‘conspiracy theorist’.

From Sky News US:

A note allegedly found in the suspect’s bag said that he wanted to kill at least one transport officer with his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and didn’t care which one.

“Black, white, yellow, brown, I don’t discriminate,” the note read, according to a paraphrase by a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

The suspect’s screed also mentioned “fiat currency” and “NWO,” possible references to the New World Order, a conspiracy theory that foresees a one-world government. (emphasis added)

I will bet my last dollar that in the very near future alternative media will be mentioned. Alternative media sites will be accused of spreading these messages.

We, the alternative media, both writers and readers are next on the list to be demonized. We are the next ‘issue’ that the government needs to find a solution to. Like gun control et al, we have become a target.

The government knows that the alternative media is growing. That more and more people are looking for answers that the mainstream does not provide. This cannot be allowed. It is dangerous to a government that sees itself as omnipotent.

The ‘revelations’ that will come out over the next few days will most likely say that Paul Ciancia frequented alternative media websites and that these sites had a bearing on his actions.

Gone are the days when a man with a gun is just insane, vindictive or just plain bad and decides to shoot people. Now there always has to be a reason, and that reason always has to be one that will allow the government to ride in and rescue us.

It will always be a reason that gives them justification for exercising more control over our lives and this time the reason could well be us, the alternative media.

Source: The Daily Sheeple

Disturbing Realities Across America: Living At The Margins

If you watched NBC’s anchor Lester Holt on Saturday evening’s news, he reported that Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, features a “food pantry” for students who cannot afford to feed themselves while attending college.  Further into the report, Holt announced that 50 colleges across the United States feature “food pantries” that give donated food stuffs out to destitute college students barely able to make their way through college.

The whole report sickened me.  NBC’s Brian Williams last week reported that this month is the 10 year anniversary of invading Iraq with “Shock and Awe” from former President George W. Bush.  We suffered 4,750 dead young men and women, 32,000 hideously wounded and $2 trillion in expenditures.  Brian also announced that no “Weapons of Mass Destruction” existed in Iraq.  We also killed over 150,000 Iraqi citizens.

As I sat there in my chair watching the news, I felt an overwhelming disgusting feeling that a band of 535 lunatics and one lunatic former president and the present incompetent president lack any ability to deal with reality and create solutions that solve American’s problems.

No one in his right mind would invade a sandbox country run by an idiot dictator over 10,000 miles away. Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to our country.

Yet, we feed 47.7 million Americans with food stamps because those individuals cannot find a job or are too illiterate to hold a job.  We suffer 14 million unemployed Americans looking for work. Our infrastructure and bridges crumble right before our eyes.  We stand eye-ball deep in $16.5 trillion in debt.  Our educational systems spit out functionally illiterate and welfare-dependent kids by the hundreds of thousands every year.

A mind-numbing 13.4 million American children live below the poverty level in conditions that sicken any middle-American.  Some one million Americans remain homeless night after night in the city streets of America.  One in six Americans face hunger.   “In many ways, America is the land of plenty. But for 1 in 6 people in the United States, hunger is a reality. Many people believe that the problems associated with hunger are confined to small pockets of society, certain areas of the country, or certain neighborhoods, but the reality is much different. Right now, millions of Americans are struggling with hunger.  These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days.”

Yet, our Congress just gave Egypt $250 million dollars in aid this month.  We send billions of dollars that we borrow from other countries to give to dozens of countries around the world in foreign aid.  Yet, our own country rides on the thin margins of pretention.

That same Congress imports 100,000 legal, unskilled, undereducated, welfare-prone, food stamp and assisted housing recipients every 30 days into America.  Those same immigrants along with illegals cost American taxpayers $346 billion annually across 15 federal agencies. (Source: Edwin Rubenstein, ESR, www.TheSocialContract.com )

It’s so beyond the realm of stupidity that it morphs into the realm of insanity—but Congress carries out this level of insanity as a normal method of day to day business.

We flounder at saving ourselves on the margins of our national debt by waiting until the last minute to pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling.   Yet, we never solve the debt problem at the cause.  We continue with endless wars that cost us trillions of dollars, but we march right into new wars that provide no security or freedom—but plenty of death and debt.  Our children suffer with educational systems bankrupting, but we add more to our military budgets where we must train poorly educated citizen soldiers.

We stagger into the future without a plan. Specifically, President Barack Obama staggers forward without a plan and our Congress waltzes into the financial and social abyss with him.

The American people become victims of our leaders’ incompetence, their corruption and their outright greed.  For those 535 Congress critters to continue their pretenses of leading this country, it’s appalling that they can sleep at night knowing they fail us and fail us utterly.

One reader said, “Your latest article regarding immigration expresses what I’ve been saying for years. Neither Bush nor Obama care about securing the borders. All the talk about creating jobs is smoke and mirrors and rhetoric.  Congress is still allowing 100,000 people to come here legally each month. How can we possibly put Americans to work at this rate?  Looking at the whole picture, I firmly believe our country is finished, and it’s not going to return to what it was when we were younger. We will not out-vote those whose gave Obama a second term. He is bent on destroying our way of life, and succeeding. Morality and a belief in our Creator have been severely weakened.  The U.S.A. is controlled by a despotic president, and parasites in Congress.”

Portland, Oregon Prepares for Pre-Election Anti-Austerity Protest

On November 3rd Portland community and labor groups will declare “enough is enough” by organizing a first for the U.S. — a large demonstration against government austerity cuts.

The protest takes aim at the governmental policy of austerity — where public deficits on a city, state, and federal level are being addressed by “cuts only” budgets, resulting in continued de-funding of education, health care, transportation, and other vital public services, combined with an attack on public sector workers.

The pre-election date of the protest is no accident, but an intentional action that, in part, aims to bring awareness to the post-election cuts slated to “fix” the national deficit. Although Democrats and Republicans are still wrangling over a specific dollar amount of cuts, they do agree that at least $4 trillion in cuts — including social programs like Medicare, education and likely Social Security — are “necessary” ($4 trillion is Obama’s proposal; Paul Ryan’s is $6 trillion).

Nearly all politicians claim there is no alternative to austerity cuts, which in Portland have caused devastation to public schools and other social services.

The alternative solution to austerity is obvious: budget deficits should be fixed by taxing the corporations and the wealthy, who have benefited for decades from a bi-partisan policy of lower tax rates, while working people have seen property, liquor, and other regressive taxes levied against them. These pro-corporate policies are in large part the cause of the current deficit, the recession — caused by the big banks — is another cause.

Giant protests against austerity in Europe have attracted hundreds of thousands and evolved into citywide general strikes, thanks in large part to the active participation of the European labor movement. In Portland, the anti-austerity demonstration is endorsed by locals from Service Employees International Union, Communication Workers of America, Letter Carriers, Laborers, Jobs With Justice, and other community groups including Occupy Portland.

If the Portland protest is large enough it will have succeeded in educating the community about the special interest, pro-corporate agenda behind the national and local austerity cuts, while also showing practical alternatives to austerity: making the rich and corporations pay for the crisis they created.

Ideally, the Portland demonstration will be the beginning of a working-class coalition of labor and community groups with the potential of growing into a powerful European-like movement capable defeating not only city and state austerity budgets, but working with other cities to change social policy on a national level.

Economists agree that the economic downturn shows no signs of real recovery, ensuring that austerity will remain an issue that threatens the livelihoods of all working people for years to come. Better to start fighting it now!

The protest begins 1pm, at Portland’s Holladay Park on November 3rd.

The Job Crisis, The “Unemployable,” And The Fiscal Cliff

With the November elections right around the corner, the millions of unemployed and under-employed have little reason to care. Aside from some sparse rhetoric, neither Democrats nor Republicans have offered a solution to job creation. Most politicians seem purposefully myopic about the jobs crisis, as if a healthy dose of denial might get them through the electoral season unscathed.

In reality, the jobs crisis continues unaddressed, and threatens to get worse after the election. The post-election “fiscal cliff” of social cuts — “triggered” by Obama’s debt commission —will pull the economy below the current treading-water phase, drowning millions more workers in America in unemployment and hopelessness. In addition, two million more long-term unemployed — those lucky enough to still receive benefits — face the very likely possibility of having their benefits ended due to the trigger cuts.

But this is all part of the plan. The current jobs crisis is not accidental; there are public policies that could be implemented — such as a federal jobs program — that would stop unemployment in its tracks. Both parties agree that this cannot be done for the same reason: high unemployment is desirable since it acts as a sledgehammer against wages, lowering them with the intent of boosting profitability for corporations. Creating this nationwide “new normal” takes time.

Until corporations have an ideal environment to make super profits — aside from the short-term money printing of the Federal Reserve — unemployment will remain purposefully high. The Feds massive money-printing program — called Quantitative Easing (QE) — is a desperate move that risks super inflation, yet is deemed necessary until politicians implement the economic new normal for workers in America.

This policy is referred to as an “adjustment” period by some economists. Corporations and their puppet politicians have used the recession to start implementing the new normal of lower wages, reduced benefits, and fewer social programs on a city, state, and federal basis. In order to complete this national adjustment, expectations for working people must be drastically lowered, so that they’ll be less likely to be angry and fight against this onslaught.

This was Bill Clinton’s intention when he told the Democratic National Convention, “The old economy isn’t coming back.” Most people in America have yet to realize this, but the economic policies of the Democrats and Republicans reflect a conscious plan to push wages down and shred the safety net to fit the “new economy” standards sought by corporate America.

Because corporations only hire workers in order to make profit, businesses today are sitting on trillions of cash, waiting for a sunnier day to invest in labor. The lower the wages of workers in America, the brighter the skies for corporations’ bottom line. It is this basic economic interest driving the jobs crisis, as politicians only offer solutions that “encourage businesses to invest” rather than creating immediate solutions for working people.

But millions of people are waiting for sunnier days too. A large number are seeking to wait out the recession by returning to school and are now graduating; a record 30 percent have bachelor degrees, a number that is expected to rise. The increasing number of graduates will drive up unemployment, while those lucky enough to find jobs aren’t finding one capable of paying off their massive student loans. The trillion-dollar student loan business is yet another example of wealth transference from bottom to top: students borrow money from the wealthy, and pay them back with interest, sometimes exorbitant interest.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that there are 12.5 million people who are officially unemployed but an additional 9.5 million who are “unofficially” unemployed — those who are not actively looking for work, “discouraged workers,” part-time workers who want full-time work, etc. The number is almost certainly higher. These workers are not counted in the “official” unemployment numbers, and this unofficial number is getting worse. In August 2012, 368,000 more workers joined this illustrious group by dropping out of the labor force, i.e., they gave up looking for a job and thus are no longer counted as unemployed, in this way giving Obama “positive news” since the unemployment numbers actually improved!

These workers are often referred to as “unemployable,” meaning that they are usually over fifty years of age or under 30 and are tarnished with a lack of job experience or an excess of it. Corporations can now have an abundance of workers to choose from, and are being extra picky on whom they hire, if anybody.

The new “private sector” jobs that Obama constantly brags about are much lower paying than the jobs they are replacing. According to a study performed by the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of all new post-recession jobs come with wages below $14.00 an hour, i.e. a not a living wage.

For those millions unable to find jobs, their future lies in either dependence on family or the state, or a risky life in the informal economy, which implies the possibility of imprisonment.

The reason that many labor and community groups have not fully explained the above facts — nor protested against them — is because they are “embarrassing” to the Democrats. Labor unions have gone into pre-election hibernation, ignoring reality as they push their members to campaign for the president who is overseeing this economic “new normal.”

The still-sputtering economy is expected to grind to a halt post-election, with average working people again footing the bill. But millions of Americans are experiencing the politics of the 1%, and drawing conclusions; ever since the recession government policy has been aimed at benefiting the wealthy and corporations, while working people have only experienced layoffs, lower wages and benefits, and slashed public services. To stop this dynamic of austerity working people must unite and protest in massive numbers, like the working people of Europe.

In Portland, Oregon, such a demonstration is being planned, pre-election, by a coalition of community groups to “stop the cuts,” for debt relief, and against the above national policy of austerity for working people. By highlighting the bi-partisan nature of the attack against working people, the community organizers in Portland hope to educate the community to take action, so that working people are prioritized. Let the wealthy pay for their crisis.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2009/05/actual_us_unemployment_158.html

25 Signs That America Is A Seething Cesspool Of Corruption

Do you believe that America is a seething cesspool of filth and corruption?  If not, you might change your mind after reading this article.  Sadly, the truth is that the United States is absolutely corrupt to the core.  This is true from the very top of our society all the way to the very bottom.  The current occupant of the White House will likely go down in history as the most corrupt president in history, and that is really saying something.  Almost every single day he adds something new to his list of corrupt deeds.  He is a con man that deserves to be impeached for a whole host of reasons, but that will never happen because we have a Congress that is also deeply corrupt.  But it is not just our politicians that are corrupt.  Even the men that are supposed to be in charge of protecting the president are corrupt.  A whole bunch of them were recently discovered sleeping with prostitutes in Colombia.  We also find very deep and very pervasive corruption in our financial institutions, in our judicial system, in our police departments and in our religious institutions.  It is almost as if nearly the entire nation is saturated with filth and depravity.  It is becoming harder and harder to find men and women of integrity, and our young people have very few positive role models to look up to.  How long is our society going to be able to continue to function normally if all of this corruption gets even worse?

The following are 25 signs that America is a seething cesspool of filth and corruption….

#1 The men and women of the Secret Service are supposed to be the best of the best.  Instead, they have become a national embarrassment.  11 members of the U.S. Secret Service are under investigation for consorting with prostitutes in Colombia.  Reportedly, several of the Secret Service agents that hired prostitutes were married.

#2 Our financial institutions are filled with cheats and liars.  2011 and 2012 have been absolutely horrible years for natural disasters in the United States.  At a time when homeowners need their insurance companies more than ever, many insurance companies are systematically trying to weasel out of payouts and are trying to shift as much liability over to homeowners as possible.  The following is from a recent Reuters article….

Insurance companies are raising rates, cutting coverage, balking at some payouts and generally shifting more expense and liability to homeowners, according to reports from the industry and its critics.

“Insurance companies have significantly and methodically decreased their financial responsibility for weather catastrophes like hurricanes, tornados and floods in recent years,” the Consumer Federation of America said in a statement after studying industry data.

The industry concedes that it is trying to avoid getting trounced by those same punishing weather patterns.

#3 Identity theft for the purpose of stealing tax refunds has reached epidemic proportions in America.  The following is one shocking example that made the news recently up in New York….

Authorities say a former manager at a nonprofit Long Island health agency stole the IDs of more than 50 brain injury patients to get their tax refunds.

#4 The filth on television continues to get worse and worse.  As WorldNetDaily recently reported, one new HBO series is going way over the line….

HBO’s irreverent mockumentary “Angry Boys” is under fire for combining child actors and phallic humor, including one scene in the series’ 12th episode, where a little girl drinks from a water bottle shaped like a giant, pink penis.

#5 All over the country, violent crime is getting worse.  For example, there were  more homicides in Chicago during the first three months of 2012 than there were during the first three months of 2011.

#6 Some of the violent crimes committed recently in cities such as Chicago appear to be absolutely senseless.  The following is one recent example ….

A woman was shot in the face while driving in the Gresham neighborhood on the Far South Side late Wednesday.

The woman, 38, was driving west in the 2000 block of West 84^th Street about 11:30 p.m. when a light colored car pulled alongside her and someone inside fired shots, according to police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro.

#7 It isn’t just in the big cities where these kinds of senseless crimes are being committed either.  One crime that happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma recently is almost too horrifying to describe.  The following is from a recent Daily Mail report….

An 85-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and battered to death by a home invader who also shot her 90-year-old husband in the face with a BB gun.

Nancy and Bob Strait, who had celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in December, were discovered by their daughter at their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Both the pensioners were rushed to hospital where Mrs Strait, who was nearly blind, died from her injuries.

#8 The flash mob epidemic that made headlines all over the nation last year is continuing in 2012.  For example, several dozen young people recently stormed into a gas station in the Portland, Oregon area and took off with whatever they could carry.

#9 Thieves all over the nation are becoming incredibly bold.  Up in New York, thieves recently stole brass plaques and bronze vases from a cemetery.

How desperate and corrupt do you have to be to desecrate the graves of the dead?

#10 These days thieves will steal anything that they can sell easily on the streets.  For example, Tide detergent has become extremely popular to steal because it is being used as an alternative form of currency on the streets of many American cities.  The following is from a recent article in The Daily….

Theft of Tide detergent has become so rampant that authorities from New York to Oregon are keeping tabs on the soap spree, and some cities are setting up special task forces to stop it. And retailers like CVS are taking special security precautions to lock down the liquid. 

One Tide taker in West St. Paul, Minn., made off with $25,000 in the product over 15 months before he was busted last year.

“That was unique that he stole so much soap,” said West St. Paul Police Chief Bud Shaver. “The name brand is [all] Tide. Amazing, huh?”

Tide has become a form of currency on the streets. The retail price is steadily high — roughly $10 to $20 a bottle — and it’s a staple in households across socioeconomic classes.

#11 In Baltimore, a man was recently knocked to the ground, stripped naked and had his car keys, watch, money and cell phone taken.  In itself, that is not much of a story.  But what made it a story was that instead of helping the man, the crowd of onlookers watching all of this happen laughed hysterically while recording the incident with their cell phone cameras for YouTube.

#12 The number of Americans that are willing to become permanently dependent on the government is absolutely astounding.  At this point, there are approximately 67 million Americans that get some form of financial assistance from the federal government.

#13 Government dependence is increasingly being glamorized in popular culture.  For example, one nightclub down in Alabama recently held a “Food Stamp Friday” party.

#14 As I have written about previously, employees of the federal government are living the high life at the expense of hard working American taxpayers.  In fact, one federal employee recently made an  about it.

#15 Recently, I reported on the “Obama flag” that was flying above a Democratic Party headquarters down in Florida.  Well, now another one has been spotted flying above a home .  During the 2012 election season will we see American flags that have had the stars replaced with the face of Barack Obama flying over homes and businesses from coast to coast?

#16 In the United States today, the use of sexual humiliation by security officials has become normalized.  If you are not convinced of this yet, you should check out  of a woman sobbing as the TSA touches her private areas as they pat her down.

#17 Sadly, TSA officials have shown over and over that they are deeply corrupt and cannot be trusted.  For example, one TSA manager at Dulles International Airport was recently discovered to be running a prostitution ring out of a local hotel room.

#18 According to the U.S. Supreme Court, police in the United States can now strip search you any time that they want.  All they need to do is to make up some reason to arrest you.  Needless to say, police all over the country are now going to be looking for any reason that they can think of to arrest very attractive women.

#19 In the United States, it has become regular practice for young couples to “live together” before marriage.  In fact, in America today more than half of all couples now move in together before they get married.  Sadly, the divorce rate for couples that live together first is also significantly higher than for those that do not.  At this point, America has thehighest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.

#20 The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by far.  In fact, the United States has a teen pregnancy rate that is more than twice as high as Canada, more than three times as high as France and more than seven times as high as Japan.

#21 Unfortunately, there are dramatic consequences for all of the loose sexuality going on in America.  The CDC says that there are approximately 19 million new cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia in America every single year.

#22 Most Americans have no idea this is happening, but the truth is that abortion clinics all over the country are sellingaborted baby parts to scientists for medical research.  If we keep cheapening human life like this, eventually it will mean next to nothing to us.

#23 According to the results of one recent investigation, an astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic goes to pornography websites.  A different survey found that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States visit pornography websites while they are at work.

#24 There is a right way and a wrong way to do things.  This is especially true when it comes to notifying military wives that their husbands are dead.  Sadly, some women are now being notified about the deaths of their husbands in the militarythrough Facebook.

#25 Our politicians are stealing 150 million dollars an hour from future generations so that we can live more comfortably right now.  The American people participate in this theft by voting these politicians back into office over and over again.  The crime that we are committing against future generations is almost too horrible for words.

So what is causing all of this filth and corruption?

Why has America become such a cesspool?

Source: The American Dream

Three Reasons Why Ron Paul Appeals To Young People

Denver talk host David Sirota wrote a very fine essay this week on Ron Paul’s appeal among voters aged 18 to 29. Contrary to common belief, this popularity is not simply a matter of their wanting to burn hippie lettuce.* Rather, Sirota says, it is that they have a principled stance against America’s endless wars.

I want to approach this question from a different angle: how one’s life experience often   profoundly influences one’s worldview. There are three major cultural reasons for Ron Paul’s appeal to younger voters.

1)      They are on the internet more intensively than anyone else. Indeed, if you are 18, you may very well not remember life without the internet.

When I was 18, in 1979, we got our news from the three major networks, newspapers and news magazines. No we were not in the Soviet Union where the flow of information was controlled by TASS, Pravda and Izvestia. However, our news options were relatively quite limited. Cable TV hadn’t gained a footing yet. The Fairness Doctrine governed radio, so talk radio was a non-factor.

Along came the internet in the 1995-96 time frame. Now, anyone anywhere of even modest financial means could broadcast their message worldwide. Our news and information options suddenly became infinite. This is the world in which the majority of the group Sirota describes has come of age. This is how they get their information. And it absolutely tortures control freaks!

2)      They know they have gotten a raw economic deal.

On the front end of things, more people than ever are questioning the value of a traditional college education. In 1965, tuition at Yale and Princeton was $1950 per year. In 2011, it is roughly $40,000. In-state tuition at Black Hills State University is now $7400. Higher education may very well constitute another bubble waiting to burst.

Not only has college become way more expensive – largely due to federal involvement – but jobs for new graduates are scarcer than ever. And the total amount of outstanding student loan debt has surpassed that of outstanding credit card debt.

On the back end, most young adults know that they will never see a dime of Social Security or Medicare. Current unfunded liabilities of the federal government stand at over $116 trillion. If you can’t comprehend that number, don’t worry. Neither can many astrophysicists.

It is this generation that will foot the bill for the financial damage that the current political and paper-money financial establishments hath wrought.

3)      They are of military age.

Sirota goes into great detail about their thoughts on war and foreign policy. Let me drill down here. Might these thoughts just stem from the fact that, more than anyone, they, their friends and classmates have spilled their blood in endless wars that are being sold to them by politicians and media hacks who have never served a day in the military?

It is easy to talk about “war”, “country”, “flag” and “patriotism”. It is quite another to pay for these things in the coin of your own blood.

It is quite another to have before-and-after photos like those of Marine Sergeant Tyler Ziegel of Metamora, Illinois.

I resent it when people purport to speak for me. Hence, I almost never want to speak for someone else. However, it is one thing to wage war, finance war, and promote war and to get all weepy-eyed whenever you hear Lee Greenwood sing and to gawk at Fox News as if it were the Playboy Channel. It is quite another to experience war firsthand or to know someone who has.

Is it any surprise that Ron Paul receives more campaign contributions from active duty military than all other presidential candidates combined? He is the only candidate who realizes that war is not just a video game, but a true life-and-death experience. He is the only candidate who will not use you or your kids as meat on the hoof for endless wars based on endless lies.

Is it any surprise that Ron Paul is so popular among young voters? I repeat my thesis: one’s life experiences have profound effects on one’s worldview. Ron Paul’s message and philosophy have enormous practical appeal to those who are coming into adulthood at this point in American history.
_____________________________________________________________
* Ron Paul supports your Ninth Amendment right to burn hippie lettuce. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, supports  if you are caught ingesting things he doesn’t want you to ingest. Governments have done infinitely more to destroy civilization than plants and their extracts ever have.

When you let people do whatever they want, you run the risk of Woodstock. When you let governments do whatever they want, you run the risk of Auschwitz. Any questions?

The Battles of Occupy Portland

For those who were there, November 13th will be a day long remembered in Portland, Oregon. Occupy Portland again proved why it remains the 2nd strongest Occupy movement in the U.S. when it mobilized against police eviction. Instead of the Occupiers being evicted it was the police who were sent home demoralized.

The following morning, however, the police again moved in to evict the mostly-emptied camp, and again thousands of protesters arrived to protest. As this article is being written there remain thousands of protesters in downtown Portland trying to decide their next occupation spot with hundreds of riot police nearby. Although the original occupied park is now surrounded by a fence and hundreds of riot police, the movement has been strengthened exponentially after the stunning victory the previous night and energetic re-mobilization the following morning which grew throughout the day.

The Mayor, police, and the local 1% had set the stage to justify police violence while scaring the public away from the downtown occupation spot before the eviction; radio stations warned listeners to “stay away from downtown,” businesses closed their doors early for “fear of violence,” the media shamefully reported stories without sources about people from “out of town” coming to Portland with violent intent. The ultra-peaceful protest that ensued made a mockery of these lies from Portland’s 1%.

The eviction order was to begin at midnight, but there were 7,000 plus people already assembled to prevent it. The police tried to wait the protesters out. Hours later the Mayor got impatient and made mistake number two. The riot police were sent in to provoke a riot; mounted police and foot soldiers slammed themselves into the very peaceful crowd, to no avail. They were swarmed by thousands of people unafraid, and the police retreated. The crowd roared with ecstasy.

There were other scare tactics employed; loud speakers announced the use of “chemical agents” to clear the streets, but the police had already lost their nerve. The jubilant protesters stayed in the streets until the sun rose, just to make sure the police didn’t try any more tricks (though the tricks came hours later).

The now-humiliated Portland Mayor had given the occupy camp a 48-hour eviction notice on November 11th, having been pressured by the Portland Business Association and now-humbled Police Chief into action.

The reason the Mayor hadn’t acted before is that he is much more politically astute than the police chief and understood the power of the Occupy Movement. In Portland there have been three very large demonstrations that had immense popular support. But the usually savvy Mayor miscalculated and attempted to strike prematurely. Now he has provoked a strong reaction, pumping new energy into the movement.

Why did the Mayor finally decide to act? Aside from pressure from his corporate and police buddies, he watched the development of the Occupy Movement closely and waited for public support to wane. The Mayor saw the Occupy demonstrations dwindle in size, due in large part to the fracturing of the Occupy demonstrations into the pre-Occupy dynamic of issue-based activism that has long infected the left.

For example, several marches were held every week, each organized around a different issue: there was an anti-coal march; anti-police brutality march; diversity march; anti-pipeline march, etc. There were also several cases of small groups or individuals practicing civil disobedience.

The Mayor’s confidence bloomed in direct proportion to the shrinking sizes of the marches and actions.

The Mayor’s confidence was warranted, and so were the fears of the Occupiers, many of whom had already packed their tents and left. The kitchen, library, media center, and everything else of value were plucked from the camp in anticipation of the eviction, (this aided the police the following morning when the camp was finally evicted). The Occupy leaders seemed aware that they had lost touch with Portland’s working class.

In fact, the Occupiers did not even issue a strong “call to action” in defense of the camp, nor was the pre-eviction day of events organized in a way that would mobilize massive numbers. There was a noon rally, 2pm march, 5pm rally, 7pm festival — none of which were well attended.

After the community festival drew only a couple hundred people, most activists — including myself — thought the camp was lost. At the last hour, seemingly out of nowhere, thousands of people came streaming into the streets. They came not because the organizers of Occupy Portland had reached out to them effectively in the preceding weeks, but because they understood the basic issues that the movement represented, that of working people versus the wealthy and corporations.

Occupy Portland has been given a reprieve by working people, but it must learn from the above mistakes. “We are the 99%” is a powerful uniting slogan, but the various issue-based activism of years past directly contradict the uniting principles of the larger Occupy Movement. Most of the issue-based activists have not yet realized their ideas are not those that the 99% view as most important. The attempt at trying to re-assert their organizing around a hundred separate left issues, most of which working people know very little about, has fallen flat.

The Occupy Movement will be crushed if the demands being fought for do not connect with working people. A key characteristic of any powerful social movement is the appearance of successive, large demonstrations that draw in new layers of working people, students, and the elderly. The average working person feels impelled to join such a movement because they see their own interests reflected in the movement, and once they join they learn that their interests are the same as those of the others involved.

Massive demonstrations also inspire people because they instinctively know that in huge numbers their power is multiplied, making the demands winnable. Consistently large demonstrations are only possible when they are organized around a few demands that are of most concern to all working people.

There remain only a few issues that have the potential to galvanize the larger working class into the streets and to keep them there. They are the issues that Democrats and Republicans refuse to embrace, but are issues that nevertheless represent a major social crisis affecting hundreds of millions of the 99%. The Occupy Movement must make these issues their cause: a massive jobs program and no cuts to social programs — including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, all to be paid for by massively taxing the rich and corporations. In fact, the only visible signs at the recent Portland demonstration called for Jobs and Taxing the Rich.

The Occupy Movement will not withstand another period of demonstrations based on a laundry list of issues that do not, at this time, resonate with the vast majority of the 99%. This will only result in the pre-Occupy, leftist based politics of splintered interests, with each group pursuing its own predetermined agenda without a vision of a mass movement of the great majority. Occupy Portland was saved by a massive outpouring of people and needs to keep the majority of working people in mind at every step of the movement from now on.

The Way Forward For Occupy Portland

In Portland, Oregon, all the promise and pitfalls of the Occupy Movement are on public display. Portland is second only to New York when it comes to sustained Occupy power, but in a newly born social movement strength is not something to take for granted. The vast amounts of public support in Portland, earned through large demonstrations and strategic outreach, can be frittered away by the internal contradictions of the movement.

Portland began its occupation with a 10,000-person rally that shook the city’s foundation and disorientated the Mayor, who had no choice but to “allow” the occupation to stay at the park they had taken without asking. There has since been several large Portland rallies and marches that have proven the wider population’s support: On October 26 a labor union-led Occupy march turned out thousands of union members with ecstatic morale; the same week showcased a “This Land is Our Land” Occupy rally by Portland band Pink Martini, which attracted nearly 10,000 people.

But the speeches of the Pink Martini rally were hardly Occupy worthy, since they showcased two members of Oregon’s Congressional House of Representatives, politicians of the political establishment that the Occupy movement rose up against. As Representative Earl Blumenauer spoke, a group of activists chanted “This is what hypocrisy looks like,” in response to his voting in favor for the recently passed pro-corporate free trade agreements.

If Portland’s Occupy movement had a strong list of demands — or even a firm statement of principles — the Democrats in Oregon would be unable to associate with Occupy, since the Democrats’ objectives would so obviously clash with those of the anti-corporate movement. But for now “99%” is vague enough for political impostors to enter the fray and inject ideas from the wealthiest 1%.

Portland’s 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters.

Thus far, Portland’s 1% has been unable to establish the “rule of law” and evict the protesters because of the wider backlash that would ensue; the media have been pushing the Mayor to create a “timeline” for the protesters to leave. Thus far the Mayor remains too jarred to act, leaving the initiative to the protesters.

But initiative is something easily lost. There are sections of Occupiers who are impatient and want more “direct action,” including an expansion of the occupation to other parks. This would not be such a bad thing if masses of people were aggressively behind the action. Instead, on October 30th in the wee hours of the morning, the “new” occupation spot had only a couple dozen protesters who were promptly arrested, giving the police and Mayor an easy victory and the Occupy movement a small but bitter defeat. The illusion of the Mayor having “control” was upheld while the message of the protesters was muzzled.

Some protesters will argue that the arrests were a victory, but civil disobedience must be looked at from a strategic lens that is most effective with masses of people involved and specific goals in mind. The era of tiny protests and limited results belongs to the past. This movement has large scale potential, and the larger 99% will feel impelled to join if they see a strong, mass movement capable of winning demands.

Another way that Occupy Portland could lose mass support is through political disunity. There are different committees and working groups within Occupy Portland trying to build some political cohesiveness to broadcast to the wider community. The movement’s long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to “corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%.

This is precisely the problem. The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. These groups have come into the movement with ready-made ideas in mind, many of them good. But the left has been plagued by issue-based divisiveness for years, where the many different groups are pushing their individual issues into a movement that began by appealing to the 99% at large. It is healthy for left groups to advocate the end of animal cruelty, corporate personhood, and police brutality, but these are not the immediate demands that will spur the 99% to actively join the movement.

What will get people in the streets? The 99% supports the Occupy Movement because of the economic crisis that has directly affected them, not because they have ideological problems with capitalism, or want to take legal rights from corporations. The most progressive 5% cannot impose their demands on the larger 99%, since the majority of the 99% already have demands of their own.

What are these demands? The Washington Post explains: “How many times does this message have to be delivered? In poll after poll, Americans have said their top concern is the jobs crisis.” (August 11, 2011).

Poll after poll has also declared mass opposition to cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and other social programs, while declaring mass support for taxing the rich to solve these national problems.

And these issues have even greater potential to galvanize the 99% because of their centrality to organized labor. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently declared the cuts to Social Security, Medicare or to Medicaid, which have been proposed by the bipartisan “Super Committee,” are unacceptable. The proposed cuts, Trumka says, prove why people around the country “are raising their voices in protest because they’re fed up with a system that is stacked in favor of the richest one percent of Americans – at the expense of the other 99 percent of us.”

The Occupy Movement will grow or die based on its ability to relate to these demands of the larger 99%. It is these issues that reflect the most urgent needs held in common by the vast majority and that affect working people on a city, state, and national level. No long-term demands — like ending corporate personhood — can be won outside of a mass movement, and no mass movement can grow without the focus on immediate, basic demands; these demands must come before the former.

There is plenty of time for the Occupy Movement to work out the details of its long-term mission, but there is no time to waste to fight for the most popular demands of working people. The Occupy Movement is still struggling for existence, and its life cannot be maintained in a political environment unattractive to the broader 99%. If the Occupy Movement demanded that the wealthy and corporations be taxed to create jobs and prevent cuts to social programs, the 99% would see a movement built in its own image, and working people would fight for themselves while learning to fight alongside each other for the good of all working people.

Next Steps for the Occupy Movement

As the Occupy Movement gains strength nationally and internationally, questions of “what next” are popping up. Although there are no easy answers or ready-to-order recipes for moving forward, there are general ideas that can help unite the Occupy Movements with the broader community of the 99% — which is the most urgent need at the moment. Why the urgency? Writer Chris Hedges explains:

“The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this… They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets…”

The only reason that surviving occupied spots have been spared is because of the broader sympathy of the 99% combined with the direct participation of large sections of working people at marches and demonstrations. The corporate elite fear a strong, united movement like vampires fear sunlight.

Therefore, city governments are slow-playing the Occupy Movement where it is especially strong — New York and Portland, Oregon, etc. — and are attacking quickly in cities where momentum hasn’t caught fire —, Denver, Boston, etc. The massive demonstrations in New York and Portland have protected the occupied spaces thus far, as the mayor, police,and media attempt to chip away at public opinion by exploiting disunity in the movement or focusing on individuals promoting violence, drug use, etc.

To combat this dynamic, the Occupy Movement people needs to unite around common messages that they can effectively broadcast to those 99% not yet on the streets; or to maintain the sympathy of those who’ve already attended large marches and demonstrations. And although sections of the Occupy Movement
scoff at demands, they are crucially necessary. Demands unite people in action, and distinguish them from their opponents; demands give an aim and purpose to a movement and act as a communications and recruiting tool to the wider public. There is nothing to win if no demands are articulated.

One reason that the wealthy are strong is because they are united around demands that raise profits for the corporations they own: slashing wages and benefits, destroying unions, lowering corporate tax rates, destroying social programs, privatization, ending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, etc.

To consolidate the ranks of the Occupy Movement we need similar demands that can inspire the 99%. These are the type of demands that will spur people into action — demands that will get working class people off their couches and into the streets! The immediate task of the movement is to broadcast demands that will agitate the majority of the 99% into action.

On a national level these demands are obvious: Tax the Rich to create a federal public jobs program, fully fund Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and other social programs, fully fund public education, single payer health care, end the wars. These are demands that can unite the Occupy Movement and working people nationally while preventing Democrats and Republicans from taking it over. Poll after poll has recorded that an overwhelming majority of the U.S. population strongly supports these demands, and many unions, including the national AFL-CIO have gone on record supporting them.

On a city and state level these demands can be translated to local issues; cities and states are facing budget deficits that are resulting in cuts to education, social services and resulting in more unemployment. Local Occupy Movements can demand that the local top1% pay more to make up for these, while also demanding that cities and states create jobs with this money.

Corporations are united in their purpose of profit chasing and social service slashing; so too must we be united in saving social services and taxing corporate profits, on a local and national level.

The Occupy Movement has more than room for an umbrella of demands from diverse sections of working class people, but now we must focus on what unites the vast majority, since the corporations have focused on dividing us for decades. The more diverse demands of the working class can find a safe place for expression and growth only within a mass, united movement.

There can be no doubt that the Occupy Movement will either continue to grow into a massive social movement or shrink until the corporate-elite are able to snuff it out. In order for the movement to grow, it must truly attract the broader 99%, not merely the most progressive 10%. Focusing on broad but specific demands that all working people will fight for will attract organized labor, the elderly, students, minorities, i.e., the whole working class.

A working class mass movement has not existed in the United States since the 1930s and 40s when it resulted in spectacular progressive change in America, even if it was cut short before European-style social programs were achieved. Nevertheless, the achievements of the mass movements of past generations are under attack — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a living wage, etc. Only a real working class movement can save these programs and expand them.

If the Occupy Movement fails, the far right will be emboldened. They are trembling at the potential power of the movement and have lost all momentum themselves. If we lose the initiative, they will immediately seize it to press their agenda further and faster. Only by expanding the movement can we extinguish the power of the corporate elite. We have history on our side; let’s not squander it.

The Occupy Movement represents a turning point in history. But in order to achieve its potential, it must reach out to the 99% and draw the majority into its ranks. Then it will have the power to change the agenda of this country, redraw the political map, and create a government that will operate in the interests of the vast majority, not the 1%. Once this change begins to unfold, there are no limits to what it could accomplish.

Occupy Portland Is Born with Ten Thousand Strong

It should be no surprise that a city dubbed “Little Beirut” by President Bush Senior — due to the large protests against him — began its “occupation” on a level on par with Wall Street.

On October 6th, in Portland, Oregon, ten thousand people assembled at noon at Waterfront Park on a workday in anticipation of the non-permitted march, which would make a pit stop before ending at its official, secret “Occupation” spot.

The buzz for the event had permeated all sectors of Portland society. People who had never shown a political urge in their lives were suddenly convulsing. Hundreds of people started showing up at the organizing meetings, many of them younger people unknown by the “usual suspects” of Portland activism. A refreshing sign, since new blood is a key ingredient to all social movements.

Although people were warned of police violence during the non-permitted march, nothing came of it. This isn’t surprising, given the close spotlight on Portland’s police (the Justice Department is investigating them for police brutality and having heavy trigger fingers). Also, Portland’s Mayor has a reputation for being Mr. Liberal, and cracking heads in broad daylight must not have sounded appealing to him. Most importantly, the march was large enough to defend itself, permits or not.

The atmosphere at Occupy Portland is one that forms the nucleus of any successful social movement: solidarity. Young and old from all backgrounds holding signs, chanting, and forming bonds with complete strangers over the issues that naturally bind all working people together: jobs, inequality, anti-war, student loan forgiveness, defending Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (the social safety net), etc.

These are the demands of the movement, whether or not they are officially recognized. They are the organic demands that arise from the experience of working people, as showcased by the countless signs in Portland’s protest.

There were many “anti-system” signs as well; Portland has a healthy number of anarchists, socialists, etc. But many of these more-radical signs were held by working or unemployed families; some of the banners were vague or instinctive, while others were specifically anti-capitalist. The majority of signs were of immediate demands (tax the rich, etc.), but many were “system-based.” This is the dual nature of the protests, something that will be eventually reconciled during the life of the movement. One demand needn’t be sacrificed for another, but focusing on certain demands at critical times will be crucial to give the movement momentum after the initial of burst of energy has subsided.

For example, the majority of working people can instantly unite and be moved to action with a demand similar to “tax the rich to create jobs and save Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” while only a minority of working people will unite indefinitely around the banner: “End Inequality” or “end capitalism.” This is the main reason why specific demands must eventually be put forth; working people are only powerful against their corporate competition when they are united. Indeed this is the very basis for the plight of working people today — we are ruled because 99 percent are divided against the 1 percent.

Linked with unity is organization. The Occupy movement has shown an expert use of organizational tools such as social media. The day that Occupy Portland began, one could watch the protest live at www.occupyportland.org. Linked with organization is leadership, and although the Occupy movement rejects the word, there are already obvious leaders emerging.

For example, the organizers who knew the end location of the march are leaders, as are the organizers who committed to doing the most legwork towards outreach and communication. The leaders also decided that this march was to be non-violent, which angered a minority of protesters in Portland. Leaders also control the use of the web page. Democracy is crucially important, the majority must make the decisions for the movement. But leaders emerge with any organizational effort. They are the people who contribute most and create the space for others to occupy.

After the non-permitted march, protesters gathered in “Portland’s Living Room,” Pioneer Square, where the festivities continued. Later, the march continued to its overnight venue, a public park across from the county courthouse. As of this writing the Mayor had officially approved the occupation space until 9am the following morning, when the police would evict the occupants in favor of the Portland Marathon run, who had the park reserved. The occupiers hadn’t yet decided whether to pack up and move elsewhere or test the power of the police. The optimism and numbers of protesters made the crowd courageous, but the 10,000 high mark had dwindled over the course of the night to a couple of thousand, especially after the drizzle began.

If Portland is any indication, there is plenty of energy ready to be funneled into victories for working people. It is up to the Occupy movement to find ways to best funnel this energy, since people will not indefinitely occupy something without a clear goal in mind, or without a barometer to measure their success. In Egypt, protesters proudly declared “I will occupy Tahrir Square until the dictator has fallen.” As it stands now, nobody in Portland can make a similar statement. Demands and goals do matter; wanting general change is not enough, as the Obama campaign clearly proved: vagueness invites political opportunists and their offspring, which ends in disappointment.

But for now occupying is enough. We are entering the infant stage of a new social movement, and once the newborn’s excitement of being alive passes away, real life must be dealt with: the infant must learn to walk; must learn what to value and how to achieve its goals while clearing obstacles out of its path. Although there is no telling how this baby will mature, we can only hope that adulthood will be successful.