Tips

By Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D.

Natural News | The western world has purposely been misled, intimidated and hypnotized by fear from nearly all established institutions of civilization. The best way to wire an individual's brain for fear is to consistently state the exact same premise over and over again regardless of the veracity of such statements. As neuroscientists predict, individuals will unconsciously begin to believe such statements and the more often these ideas are reinforced, the stronger the hard wiring becomes.

We live in a semi-conscious state of terrorism where our minds have ostensibly been pre-programmed for fear. As history has consistently shown mankind, the best way to control a population is through the institutionalization of fear. Cancer, debt, disease, terrorism, sleeper cells, war, Al Qaeda, and death are just some of the key words promulgated throughout our daily lives, but how much of these are actually true threats deserving of our fear? Even better, how many of these fears are simply unfounded and misguided to keep us in an uncertain, apprehensive and controlled state of mind?

Transitioning from fear to truth marks an integral shift in the beginning of a revolution. Whether conscious or unconscious, this transformation marks the beginning of the inexorable zeitgeist where truth, knowledge and freedom become the founding principles of the new, emerging society. These changes will not occur overnight, but as western society begins to awaken to the inherent truth that fear is simply a technique to suppress the limitless potential of every human being, only then may we begin to become completely free. Releasing our fear as individuals allows us to take control of our destinies as well as facilitate in the transformation of the shifting revolution from the mindless greed of the majority to the love of the conscious minority. Overtime, this fearless and valiant minority will garner more and more support as the shift of knowledge swings from fear to truth until the minority precipitously becomes the majority. In order to supplant the rule of the incognizant majority, truthful knowledge must spread like wildfire across the earth.

We are free individuals by virtue of birth, yet much of our freedoms are lost through our inherent nature to conform to societal norms, from the unconscious, yet powerful and pervasive trends of socialization. We begin to look, act and model our lives around others. For it is fear of non-conforming that keeps the masses conforming. Presently, society is in the midst of an historical change, one where individuals will be defined by what they do for their fellow earthlings instead of what they physically possess. The facade of the material world is rightfully dissolving at an alarming rate only to make way for the emerging revolution of unending personal freedom, wellness, love, knowledge and truthfulness.

A revolution is an uprising of individuals who believe that enough of their rights have been suppressed, ignored and completely hijacked at the expense of those wanting to keep the status quo. When we break free of our fears, we are truly open to experience our true purpose: to live a passionate, happy and loving life. It is time we begin to take back our freedoms through knowledge and awareness because simply put, we are the ones we have been waiting for. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day".

By David Swanson

After Downing Street | Remarks on September 14, 2008, at Justice Robert Jackson Conference on Planning for the Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals, Andover, Massachusetts.

I want to thank Dean Lawrence Velvel and also Sherwood Ross and Jeff Demers for putting this event together.

These remarks are posted at the top of AfterDowningStreet.org in a version that has links to materials and action pages that I reference. So you don't have to catch everything I say.

I want everyone in this room to please do something before going to sleep tonight. Take a look at Alan Dershowitz's op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal and send a letter to the editor responding to it in your own words. It can be a sentence or three paragraphs. It should be polite and include all of your contact info. You'll find links to the op-ed and the Email address in the version of these remarks at the top of AfterDowningStreet.org. Dershowitz thinks the rule of law is no more important than preventing a situation in which a prosecution results from an election, so he wants Obama not to prosecute. But he could have had both that result and the rule of law by asking Mukasey or McCain to prosecute. Dershowitz also suggests that the crimes of Bush and Cheney, IF there have been any, are no worse than those of any previous administration.

After you write to the Wall Street Journal objecting to Dershowitz's op-ed, please copy it from the Wall Street Journal's website and send it to the editorial page editor of your local newspaper asking when they are going to publish an editorial on the topic. They are far more likely to do that than to print a column favoring prosecution, and if they do they begin a debate they cannot win.

Tomorrow, Monday, September 15th, please go to http://ConvictBushCheney.org and do everything it says to do there. The first link will take you to a page that lays out Vince Bugliosi's basic argument with an important addition. The fact is that many gold star families will oppose prosecution, but if we open the field up (admittedly as a second choice) to prosecuting attempted murder as well as murder, we may be able to work with any Iraq War veteran. You will find on the website a list of cities where we know gold star families who want to prosecute for murder, a list of cities where we know Iraq veterans who want to prosecute for attempted murder, a list of states and cities where we know of candidates for the office of prosecutor who want to prosecute, and a list of states and cities where we know of prosecutors who want to prosecute. You will also find a sample letter to send to your state and local prosecutors. Please do so.

The first argument the corporate media will use to attack this effort will be the one found in the title of Dershowitz's column, the false claim that what you and I care about is vengeance and retribution. There is a way we can weaken that attack and make clear that our motivation is deterrence. We can oppose in the strongest terms the use of the death penalty. The death penalty does not deter. Rather it teaches that violence and revenge are right and good, and it is that mindset that people like Bush and Cheney exploit and without which they never could have launched these wars. What I want is to see Bush and Cheney behind bars for decades and communicating their regrets to their successors.

The second link you'll find at http://ConvictBushCheney.org takes you to a page documenting the roles of the various lawyers and advisors and providing you with a how-to kit on making a citizen's arrest. In July Judge William Price in Iowa heard the case of people arrested for trying to make a citizen's arrest of Karl Rove. When he was told what they had done, he said "Well, it's about time!" There is also information there and more to be added soon on filing complaints, removing from state bars, and denying tenure at universities. And I support academic freedom, but using that to defend John Yoo is as misguided as using confidentiality of sources to defend Judith Miller. A liar is not a source. And a facilitator of torture about whom the evidence is public knowledge has lost the right to freedom of any sort, academic or otherwise.

The third link you'll find at ConvictBushCheney.org tells you how to Email or mail the International Criminal Court requesting prosecution, and what points you can use to persuade them.

The fourth link will take you to a kit for passing an ordinance in your town, as Brattleboro, Vt., has done, committing your police to arrest Bush or Cheney if they set foot in the area.

The fifth link is to conviction theme music. No revolutions without dancing, remember.

The sixth link is to buy an ARREST BUSH T-shirt, which is a major way in which you can reach people.

That's six jobs for Monday.

On Tuesday, September 16th, our task is to define the power of the presidential pardon. We can start on Tuesday morning by all making three phone calls to (202) 224-3121 and asking for our representative and then our two senators. What we want is for them to immediately introduce a bill stating roughly this:

The presidential pardon power shall not include the power to self-pardon the president, or to pardon any staff or contractors of the executive branch, including the vice president, of crimes authorized by the president, or to preemptively pardon any individuals of crimes for which they have not yet been convicted.

If they tell you there is not time to pass it, tell them that the point is not to pass it. It would be vetoed or signing statemented or ignored. The failure of this Congress to recognize two years ago that there was nothing to be gained by passing bills has resulted in a great many deaths and tremendous suffering. The point is to get 100 cosponsors onto the thing in a week and put the issue of pardons into the news, and that is completely achievable, and the bill can be reintroduced in the next Congress.

Also on Tuesday, contact the Obama and McCain campaigns, their local offices and national, their discussion forums and staff. Find out when they will be in your area. Find out what groups are working on bird-dogging them, what groups are submitting surveys to them, etc. Plan any possible way in which you can insist that they publicly oppose the idea of presidential self-pardons and preemptive pardons. The purpose of this is not to use our issue to influence the all-important eighth consecutive Most Important Election of Your Lifetime. The purpose is to use the election to advance something much larger than any single election, the future life of a government of laws rather than a government of men and women.

Wednesday, September 17th, is Constitution Day. If you think we did a lot of work on Monday and Tuesday, you'd better eat a hearty breakfast on Wednesday. Let's start by correcting two widespread beliefs. One is that the Clinton impeachment process took roughly forever. The other is that the Bush-Cheney era is more or less over. If these myths were both true, then four months would equal both eternity and nothing. I'm not a scientist, but I'm guessing that's wrong. Another myth is that we need more information about the crimes of Bush and Cheney. We do not. We need to deter imitation of their crimes, and the fact is that they could be impeached in a morning and convicted the same afternoon. A little creative thinking is enough to realize that pressing for impeachment advances justice whether or not we get to impeachment.

We like to put our creativity into defeatism. When Bush came to Thomas Jefferson's house Monticello this past July 4th a bunch of us who live near there decided to go protest him. And we did, and the protest was in the news around the world and was not reported in the horrible ways some people feared it would be. Some refused to protest because the day's events included a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, and they feared the media would claim they were protesting that. Others refused to protest because Jefferson owned slaves and they feared the media would say they were defending Jefferson. I counted about 14 creative excuses not to act, each one stupider than the next. None were as stupid, though, as refusing to demand impeachment because Pelosi claims she doesn't have the votes. She would have the votes if she asked for them and threatened and bribed for them, as she does for pro-war votes, and a failed impeachment would advance justice far beyond no impeachment at all.

We are told by our televisions and radios every day to stop being citizens and start being pundits and amateur strategists. We have to resist the desire to be pseudo-wise and predict failures. Every good thing ever done in this world has been predicted to fail. Our job is to act.

So, on Constitution Day, go to Washington, or call your representative and demand impeachment. Explain to them the electoral advantage, which is all they care about. Tell them we need the pressure to discourage pardons. Tell them that we need the pressure to discourage crimes and wars during the next four months. Tell them that we need impeachment after the election if not before, after the new Congress starts if not before, after Bush and Cheney leave office if not before, and after they are dead if not before, and that the movement to make it happen will only grow. Tell them that pardons are not the only danger. When Bush and Cheney are dragged into court, we do not want them to be able to say that the people of this country never impeached them. We want an impeachment to strengthen a prosecution.

If Congress will not impeach, will it commit to reissuing the subpoenas and contempt citations in the next Congress that were mocked and ignored during this one? Call the committee chairs and party leadership and Obama and McCain.

The appeals courts are going to dump the responsibility to enforce subpoenas right back where it always belonged, on Congress. Since the day this country began, Congress -- either house and any committee -- has had the power of inherent contempt, the power to send the Capitol Police to arrest and detain people for contempt of Congress. It's been almost 75 years since Congress used this power, but it can use it now with Rove, Miers, et alia, or we can declare Congressional oversight dead. And you can kiss your truth and reconciliation commission goodbye too, because we can't give subpoena power to a new institution if we don't have it to give.

Before the business day ends on Wednesday, please do one more thing. Contact some New Hampshire state legislators to urge them to support HR24 on September 24th, which would require the state of New Hampshire to ask Congress to impeach. Yes, of course, Congress might not impeach. But we might elect a few better members to Congress, maybe even from New Hampshire.

On Thursday, lets devote our time to getting organized. There are almost no people in this room who are not white. The median age in this room doesn't exactly suggest Sarah Palin levels of inexperience. Groups working on domestic issues are overwhelmingly outnumbered by groups working on international issues. And yet there are not enough people here from outside the country. We need to build alliances across all of these lines, and make the connections between torture in Gitmo and torture in a U.S. police station, the need to videotape interrogations in Iraq and in Illinois. We need to identify where all the money we need for a million useful things has gone. And we need to focus on wars of aggression, not just specific smaller war crimes. Doing so will bring people into our movement, and deterring wars of aggression is precisely what we have to do to survive. I recommend devoting exactly zero minutes to reading academics who try to distinguish humanitarian wars of aggression from the bad wars of aggression. Instead devote as much time as possible to explaining the simple and accurate concept of a war of aggression to others you can reach.

I also think we should consider the possibilities for prosecution opened up by the full range of crimes, and I've linked to a list of them, including illegal propaganda, illegal spying, misspending of funds, election fraud, etc., etc.

As we reach out to groups and build coalitions, I think we should consider ways to fund lawsuits, but also ways to set up a fund to guarantee the safety and legal defense and financial well-being of whistleblowers. I'm inclined to think that could be done in a way that would have far greater results than decades of Congressional hearings.

Friday, September 19th is the monthly Iraq Moratorium day, which means that at http://iraqmoratorium.com you can find events planned all over the country opposing the occupation of Iraq. Please go to one. Meet the organizers. Ask them to work with you on prosecuting Bush and Cheney. You'll also find that the people doing these sorts of events tend to understand the weakest link in our civil society, which is the media. We have to learn to build our own media and support media outlets that support us. With all due respect to all the admirable groups that have bought advertisements in the corporate newspapers that daily destroy all that is good in the world, you can fund those beasts but you'd do as much good for yourself by going hunting with Dick Cheney.

Saturday the 20th is the Million Doors for Peace day, which means that at http://www.milliondoorsforpeace.org you can find people in your neighborhood making plans to knock on doors and talk with people about peace. Make flyers about prosecution and bring them along. Add that to the conversation.

And start conversations with peace groups about law suits they can file themselves, with your help. This past May 13th, the Rutgers/Newark Constitutional Litigation Clinic in New Jersey filed suit in the Federal District Court in Newark on behalf of New Jersey Peace Action against President Bush over the War in Iraq. The Complaint seeks a Declaratory Judgment that the President's decision to launch a preemptive war against a sovereign nation violated Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which assigns to Congress the power to declare war.

Elizabeth de la Vega tells me there is a procedure called Qui Tam in the federal false claims act that allows individuals to sue if the government spends money fraudulently. This could potentially include not just fraudulent contracts to Halliburton but nonfraudulent contracts in a fraudulent war and a war begun secretly with funds appropriated for other things.

We also haven't talked about suing contractors for torture, but such suits are underway. We need to look into all such possibilities with attorneys and organizations in our states and our circle of contacts.

September 21st is a Sunday, but we can forget about resting. Let's devote the day to getting ourselves straight with the coming elections. That means funding pro-impeachment and prosecution candidates for Congress. I've linked to a list of over 100. And send photocopies of the checks you mail them to the other candidates and the media. It means assisting the Velvet Revolution with its ongoing lawsuit in Ohio attempting to depose key players in the election fraud of 2004. And it means getting prepared mentally and helping others get prepared mentally for the outcome of the election.

It is likely to be close, and it is likely to be stolen. If the guy you really want to lose wins, the world will not be over. Nobody can stop us from restoring democratic rights if we set our minds to it. If the guy you think is the better of the two choices wins, nothing is won in terms of serious checks on presidential power and our job is just beginning. But if the election appears stolen, let's recognize that crime as what it is: the supreme domestic crime, differing only from other domestic crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

At http://standingforvoters.org you can find a pledge that candidates can be asked to take, not to accept questionable election results. Regardless of the candidates, however, we should not accept questionable results. We should get organized now to immediately shut the country down until we can schedule an honest and verifiable election

This column is not meant to offend hard-working activists who are devoting much of their time and energy to social and environmental issues. It is meant as a critique of those qualities that may keep us from building an actual Movement. I know of many activists that are guilty of the things listed below, including myself. So please don't feel offended (which brings us to our first point)...

1. Have a sense of humor.
The world is not going to change overnight, no matter how hard you work. Take time out to laugh at how messed up things really are. Take time out to laugh at yourself and the incremental changes that you and others are striving so hard for.

A good chuckle now and then keeps things in perspective and may actually make you feel better about the work you have accomplished. Making fun of yourself and other activists may be a form of critique, and we all know that.

2. Critique is necessary and vital for activism.
Analyzing what went wrong and what went right about an action or a campaign may help you to not repeat the same mistakes. Listen to what others have to say, especially the opposition, which may be the perfect foil for your cause.

Many great activists and revolutionaries engaged in rigorous self-criticism to realize what they did right or wrong. Luckily, unlike Che or Durruti, we don't have to do it under a hail of bullets (at least not yet).

3. Treat everyone as individuals.
It irks me when activists refer to "the masses" or when anti-corporate activists refer to their peers as "MTV kids." By lumping people into faceless categories we forget that we are dealing with people who have reasons for believing the things they do, whether it is family upbringing, the influence of religion or state propaganda, or just growing up in this damn culture.

When you approach people as individuals, you remember that once upon a time you too may not have had the beliefs you do now and may have been alienated by how some activists can come off. The most important aspect of reaching out to people may not be what you have to say but actually to...

4. Listen to what others have to say and know your audience.
Sometimes people's responses to what you have to say may be the best guide for learning what you shouldn't do next time. When you know who you are speaking to, you can craft your message so it appeals to them. This is something the Christian Right learned long ago in their direct mail campaigns. For example: By knowing your audience you can personalize the issue so that is not some abstract cause that they cannot relate to their everyday experience. If you are talking about immigrants' rights to some middle class white people, you can preface your point by mentioning "Imagine if this had happened to your grandparents when they were trying to escape the (famines, wars, genocide, intolerance) that brought them here."

4a. And oh yeah...ditch the highfalutin lingo!

If you insist on "subsuming the other" and "deconstructing the privileged hegemonies of socioeconomic systems," then don't expect much of a response. If you know your audience then you can talk to them at their level, not Foucault's. Besides, those big words are a privilege of those lucky enough to have been college educated and can set up an uncomfortable power dynamic. What's the use of promoting social change when you convey it in an elitist fashion?

5. And stop screaming all the time!
Yeah, we're pissed off, but if we are always screaming AT people instead of talking to them, then they won't listen. You'd be surprised how people respond when you talk politely to them. There IS a time for anger, and then there is a time for discussion. So think before you scream.

6. Single-issue activism can be problematic.
While we all have certain issues that are closest to our hearts, we shouldn't close our minds to the possible interconnections between these issues or stop from examining how they may have similar historic roots.

Sometimes single-issue activism can be very detrimental, such as how some environmentalists echo right-wing propaganda about immigration or how some anti-racist activists are just as homophobic as the KKK.

7. Having progressive politics does not exempt you from being an idiot.
There are more than a few "progressive" people who are sexist pigs or hold some pretty questionable ideas about race and class. And activists can be just as cliquey and backstabbing as frat-people. The redeeming thing is that at least by getting involved the door is open for talking about these issues, right???

8. You can't save the world via e-mail.
Your computer is a product of the techno-capitalist system and whatever good you do with it does not equal the power it has given Corporate America. No matter how efficient, technology can never replace the power and intimacy of human communication and contact.

The internet itself was designed by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as a way to decentralize communications in the advent of nuclear war. And over 98 percent of the internet's usefulness has been in speeding up commerce for speculative investment by very wealthy people all over the world.

Admittedly, the internet has increased our communications and has helped to make progressive movements more globally linked. The Zapatistas may have been crushed if not for the e-mail updates they sent out during their uprising. But we can't rely on techno-activism all the time. And one other thing: Y2K.

9. Leave the "ism's" at home.
"So that's nice. You are a (insert typical social change label here)." To most people who don't share these beliefs, these labels are loaded with media stereotypes and corporate propaganda that demean the positive aspects that these labels carry for you and me. For example, after saying to someone "I am a multiculturalist," he responded with "So you hate white people?" Instead, I should have said, "I believe in seeing race as a historical construct; it is not real in any physical or biological sense, but people are manipulated into believing that it is and treating it so." And maybe that would have spurred some lively discussion.

10. Lifestyle fascism sucks.
A major problem with many activists is instead of personalizing the political, they politicize the personal. Finding flaws in other people's lifestyles becomes something of a hobby for many progressive types, instead of identifying and deconstructing the institutions that are the source of violence against humans, animals and the environment. It is an easy way out of making real change happen by just attacking this or that consumption pattern.

What we need to remember is that by identifying certain aspects of Western lifestyle, such as meat-eating, smoking, or not boycotting the latest trendy issue, we are forgetting that it is the whole damn system that is wrong. Our power is more than our pocketbooks alone. To make real change we need to organize and find things that more of us have in common, not alienate others because they don't conform to some lifestyle guidelines. Why recapitulate the authoritarian tactics of the Christian Right or corporate America? Let people decide for themselves what they can or cannot boycott and get off the moral soapbox. We need to organize and lead lives that reflect the values we claim to hold, or want institutions to respect.

11. Ha! Ha! Ha! You're gonna burn out!
Few things hurt our causes as much as exhaustion and the implosion of those who have just "had enough." You make bad decisions, you alienate friends and family, your personal hygiene takes a nosedive. You know what? You need a break! Take a nap, paint a picture, do something to relax your mind and body. Let your energy and zeal come back.

Activism is tough and victories can be few and far between, so learn and take it easy. Even Assata Shakur says that the most important thing is to grow personally, to maintain relationships and hobbies. The revolution doesn't need zombies or robots. It needs people.

12. Stop the sectarianism!
Of course, this is like asking for tropical weather in Binghamton, but hey, might as well. From petty internecine squabbles at the local Food Coop to writers of The Nation insisting there are two (or more) "Left's," the movement has fractured and fragmented into so many little cliques and ideologies that you wonder what we have in common anymore other than our dislike for each other.

While some of the bitterness is left over from past counterinsurgency operations, such as the FBI's Cointelpro and the CIA's MH Chaos, a good deal of it is just because of activists who have split due to personal disagreements and arguments over ideology and strategy.

Can we forget our differences and actually work towards some sort of consensus so that we stop shooting ourselves in the feet? If you are new to activism, stay above the pettiness and concentrate on the issues at hand. If you are from the old school, then us young folks need your experience, not your gripes and grudges.

13. Redefine activism.
Activism is an accepted cultural niche in our society. C'mon, we all know the stereotypes: bad dresser, self-righteous about this or that issue, screaming and chanting, holding up signs, getting dragged away by cops, etc. But by becoming part of this "activist" culture we alienate many whose side we are supposedly on. How many people can relate when they see media-bites of these "wackos?" How often do we feed these stereotypes?

But look what is happening. More and more people fighting for social change are just "regular" people: a one-day general strike by New York City cabbies in May virtually shut down the city; thousands gathered to demonstrate against anti-gay violence in New York this October; recent general strikes in Puerto Rico and Colombia had hundreds of thousands of participants; 40,000 construction workers in New York City protesting non-union contracts, etc. And then there are the selfless acts we will never hear about: people forming support groups and discussion groups; people identifying who they are and where they fit into this society; people choosing to boycott some product or lifestyle, when and if they can.

These are just people responding to the basic stimulus that their lives are being messed with and they are not going to sit back and take it. These are activists as well. This is how revolutions come about. People who consider themselves "activists" have to break out of the preconceived molds and listen to what people are really talking about. Anarchism, multiculturalism, feminism, communism, veganism are all just words until our actions give them real meaning and we define for ourselves what our activism really is. Until then, activism is going to be this small, accepted, ineffectual cultural niche that alienates the people who it is supposed to be reaching out to.

Source Peace and Environmental News

There is a growing trend of peaceful events being infiltrated by agent provocateurs who operate under the umbrella of black-ops. The goal is to create radical groups who seek out violence either during events, or on corporate and federal property. The operatives will be in positions of power or influence, and will only promote violence instead of a peaceful information based strategy for activism. Most recently in Canada, undercover cops dressed like anarchists were caught causing violence and attacking cops at the WTO protest in Montebello. The cops at first stand down against their own agents, then engage the peaceful activists. This modus operandi has been used in the past, and seems to be in motion for this event by the group ReCreate 68. The DNC convention, of course, has a free speech zone and you have to receive a permit through a lottery system. It's striking that this group amongst hundreds won a permit, while publicly espousing violence. This group has been challenged to behave peacefully during this event by the founder of another group "We Are Change Colorado" and their response was "The police only understand violence". This is a red flag and has the earmarks of a operation ran by elements of black-ops to justify the end of our rights of protests, political dissidence and redress of grievances. Thanks to the great work of TruthAlliance.net, this operation has been exposed in the early stages. So when the event occurs we will be ready and prepared to expose this as an intentional act perpetuated by groups who have been influenced or directed by members of law enforcement and black-ops.

By Jonathan

TruthAlliance.net | April 16, 2008 -- ReCreate 68 has been handing out the image above on cards around Denver. The left image is the front and the right image is the back. On the website for the group, they identify with disobedience by claiming people should "join them in the streets of Denver as they resist a two-party system that allows imperialism and racism to continue unrestrained." On their website, they have called the police pigs and are educating people on the $50 million the city spent on security for the DNC. A link states "Weapons Used by the Pigs to Take Your Rights Away!" See the website here: recreate68.org

Denver area hospitals and law enforcement have been receiving emails and faxes to prepare for terrorism and mass riots in Denver for the DNC similar to the one below. In the memo, a security alert has been issued including, in some cases, the naming of one activist group, ReCreate 68, as a potential threat.

Mark and Barb Cohen, two of the coordinators of ReCreate 68 are planning massive, potentially violent protests around the DNC, have not uttered a word that they might have been wrong about their past association with a Stan and Delilah, 2 names that will ring a bell for those who look into the Kohl's incident from 2000. Their last names will not be mentioned for privacy.

The rhetoric heard from the Recreate 68, the attraction of the young people to the charisma of Glen Spagnuolo, the focus on doing battle with the police and the confronting attitude--while losing sight of the issues, the revolutionary fervor, the attitude that groups like Code Pink, etc. just aren't radical enough, the peer pressure to be more radical, the disinclination to disavow violence with the pretext that they want to be "inclusive," --all this is deja vu. It happened in 2000 with DAN. It is happening again stroke for stroke, word for word.

The DNC will be held in Denver, Colorado from August 24th through the 28th. Denver immediately started passing all kinds of unconstitutional laws demanded by the DNC Hosting Committee.

Read full article here

If you suspect an information leak within your group, these tests will help you track down the source with verified evidence.

The growing practice of espionage in relation to political organizations and activists, has created a new industry of spy agencies in the private sector for Ex-CIA, Secret Service and Military Intelligence officers. The framework that these agents follow are the hallmarks of COINTELPRO, a project issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and their leaders. Government controlled espionage has now morphed into corporations, industries and organizations hiring black-ops in order to thwart peaceful activists. Not only do these agents infiltrate groups, they also establish fictitious organizations to entrap well meaning people in an effort to diminish the movement. Once you have entered into the fight against the status quo in any form, be prepared for those who would seek to hamper, discredit or usurp your efforts.

Spot a Spy

Source Benfrank.net

Espionage on the behalf of corporations seeking to gather intelligence and infiltrate activists groups, is another example of living in a fascist state. In many instances the infiltrators instigate damaging and violent actions under the groups name to further discredit these organizations. Be weary of radical individuals that come into your group who seek to break the law, they could be saboteurs who seek to bring you down from the inside.

By James Ridgeway

Mother Jones | A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records—donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos—from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies.

In addition to focusing on environmentalists, the firm, Beckett Brown International (later called S2i), provided a range of services to a host of clients. According to its billing records, BBI engaged in "intelligence collection" for Allied Waste; it conducted background checks and performed due diligence for the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm; it provided "protective services" for the National Rifle Association; it handled "crisis management" for the Gallo wine company and for Pirelli; it made sure that the Louis Dreyfus Group, the commodities firm, was not being bugged; it engaged in "information collection" for Wal-Mart; it conducted background checks for Patricia Duff, a Democratic Party fundraiser then involved in a divorce with billionaire Ronald Perelman; and for Mary Kay, BBI mounted "surveillance," and vetted Gayle Gaston, a top executive at the cosmetics company (and mother of actress Robin Wright Penn), retaining an expert to conduct a psychological assessment of her. Also listed as clients in BBI records: Halliburton and Monsanto.

BBI, which was headquartered in Easton, Maryland, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, worked extensively, according to billing records, for public-relations companies, including Ketchum, Nichols-Dezenhall Communications, and Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin. At the time, these PR outfits were servicing corporate clients fighting environmental organizations opposed to their products or actions. Ketchum, for example, was working for Dow Chemical and Kraft Foods; Nichols-Dezenhall, according to BBI records, was working with Condea Vista, a chemical manufacturing firm that in 1994 leaked up to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride, a suspected carcinogen, into the Calcasieu River in Louisiana.

Like other firms specializing in snooping, Beckett Brown turned to garbage swiping as a key tactic. BBI officials and contractors routinely conducted what the firm referred to as "D-line" operations, in which its operatives would seek access to the trash of a target, with the hope of finding useful documents. One midnight raid targeted Greenpeace. One BBI document lists the addresses of several other environmental groups as "possible sites" for operations: the National Environmental Trust, the Center for Food Safety, Environmental Media Services, the Environmental Working Group, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, an organization run by Lois Gibbs, famous for exposing the toxic dangers of New York's Love Canal. For its rubbish-rifling operations, BBI employed a police officer in the District of Columbia and a former member of the Maryland state police.

Beckett Brown's efforts to penetrate environmental groups and other targets came to an end when the business essentially dissolved in 2001 amid infighting between the principals. But the firm's officials went on to work in other security firms that remain active today.

Beckett Brown International began when John C. Dodd III met Richard Beckett at a bar in Easton in 1994. Dodd had recently become a millionaire after his father had sold an Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship on Maryland's eastern shore. Beckett ran a local executive recruiting and consulting business. Soon after they met, according to Dodd, Beckett introduced him to Paul Rakowski, a recently retired Secret Service agent, who had put in two decades protecting presidents and foreign heads of state and had become regional manager of the agency's financial crimes division. Rakowski told Dodd he had an idea for a new security business.

Dodd subsequently received a fax of a business plan for the new company. The sender's address at the top of the fax, according to Dodd, read: "11/02/94 USSS Financial Crimes Division/Forgery"—which suggested it had come from a Secret Service office. But Dodd was reluctant to put in the start-up money for the enterprise, because he didn't know who all the partners were. To impress him, Dodd says, Rakowski and his former Secret Service colleagues began taking him and his friends on special tours of the White House. "This wasn't a White House tour conducted by tour guides," he says. "They would take us…to areas that said 'Do not pass this line.'"

At one point, Dodd says, a senior Secret Service agent named Joseph Masonis arranged for him to tour a Secret Service facility. "To encourage me to invest in this company," Dodd notes, "they all said 'why not go up to technical security headquarters [of the Secret Service] and you will get an exclusive tour.'…They showed me everything....They were worried about someone flying way up high in a plane, miles from the White House, jumping out of a plane, skydiving, popping the chute and getting on the White House grounds without anybody knowing it. They were working on the technology to pick that up." Dodd says he was blown away by what he saw. (Masonis says, "I have never taken Mr. Dodd to any facility in D.C.") And at a waterfront party, Dodd says, he was introduced to and deeply impressed by George Ferris, another Secret Service officer and an expert in demolitions.

Eventually, Dodd says, he agreed to be the sole investor of the new firm, and he put up $170,000, the first of what would be several loans at 15 percent interest. (His investment in the firm, Dodd estimates, would grow to a total of $700,000.) The company was officially launched in August 1995, named after Beckett and Sam Brown, a lawyer who helped get it started. Rakowski, Masonis, and Ferris were officials in the firm.

Business was good. In early 1997, Beckett Brown provided security services for Bill Clinton's second inauguration, landing a contract worth nearly $300,000. Early clients also included Phillip Morris, Mary Kay, Browning-Ferris Industries, and Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington-based firm founded in 1987 by Nick Nichols and Eric Dezenhall that specialized in crisis communications, particularly for corporations involved in biotechnology, product safety, and environmental controversies. BBI provided protection for retired General Norman Schwarzkopf, Dodd says, and there was talk it might also get a job to guard the Rolling Stones

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Supporting Documents

* August 20, 1998 Briefing (PDF)
* Daron Work Report (PDF)
* BBI Report for Ketchum (PDF)
* "Dow Global Tracking Team" Report (PDF)
* Florida PI's Dumpster-Diving Attempt (PDF)
* The "Glow-in-The-Dark Tacos" Emails (PDF)
* Handwritten Document With Greenpeace Door Codes (PDF)
* "Sat Surveillance" Outside Fenton's Home (PDF)"
* Nestle Project Billing (PDF)
* "Our Operative Should Be Inquiring But Not Participatory" (PDF)
* Possible Target Addresses (PDF)
* Lawyer Doubts Dumpster-Diving's Legality (PDF)