JustGetThere

Editor: These clips speak for themselves, what a sad state of affairs but I'm not surprised by his childish egoic behavior.

Related: The Alex Jones Deception: False Flag Journalism Discrediting The Truth Movement

DISINFORMATION: Inverted Body Scanner Image Shows Naked Body In Full Living Color

Viral Obama Joker Posters Reinforce the Left-Right Paradigm

9/11 Blogger | Cindy Sheehan organized a protest out in front of CIA Headquarters to protest the illegal drone bombings taking place. Afterwards, we went to Dick Cheney’s house to deliver this [see below]– listing suspicions of Dick Cheney’s involvement in 9/11. Oh let us count the ways…

SOME OF THE REASONS FOR SUSPICION DICK CHENEY

1. Belonged to an organization called the Project For A New American Century that recognized a “process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor."

2. Was the CEO of Halliburton. During his tenure there, he gave a speech at the Institute of Petroleum that said, "while many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."

3. Cheney was in command during the attacks of 9/11, and there are a multitude of inconsistencies regarding what he did that day. Especially concerning his involvement with our military’s response that morning.

4. Cheney aggressively fought against investigating 9/11. He resisted testifying before the 9/11 Commission until the bitter end. When he finally agreed to testify, he refused to do so publicly, under oath, no recordings or transcripts were allowed, only certain people were allowed in the room, and he had to be at George Bush’s side.

History was made… this was probably the first time protesters and globalists shared an agenda.

Katie Farden

Spectator Blog | Update your twitter in class and you might get a glare from your professor. Tweet at a G20 Summit protest and you could get arrested.

That’s exactly what happened to Elliot Madison—a 41-year-old, self-described New York Anarchist—who allegedly used Twitter to advise protesters at the Pittsburgh economic summit where police would be stationed so they could evade the officers.

Madison now faces charges of hindering prosecution, the Huffington Post reported Saturday.

FBI agents obtained a search warrant of Madison’s home Thursday. According to court papers filed by his attorney, the agents confiscated computers and leftist political writings from Madison’s home in Queens, New York.

Politics on the Hudson | A few hundred health-care workers and concerned citizens are protesting at the state Capitol today against mandatory swine flu vaccinations. Nurses from the Poughkeepsie area, Rochester region and other parts of New York said they don’t think they should be forced to get a vaccine that has been fast-tracked and that they don’t believe has been tested appropriately as a condition of keeping their jobs.

In previous years, health-care workers were urged but not required to get flu shots each winter season. But this year, with the expected return of the swine-flu virus, they are being required to get both seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines. The swine-flu vaccines are expected to hit the market in the coming weeks.

Many protesters are carrying home-made signs with sayings like, “We’re not lab rats” and “No flu shot no job?”

A few hundred health-care workers and concerned citizens are protesting at the state Capitol today against mandatory swine flu vaccinations. Nurses from the Poughkeepsie area, Rochester region and other parts of New York said they don’t think they should be forced to get a vaccine that has been fast-tracked and that they don’t believe has been tested appropriately as a condition of keeping their jobs.

In previous years, health-care workers were urged but not required to get flu shots each winter season. But this year, with the expected return of the swine-flu virus, they are being required to get both seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines. The swine-flu vaccines are expected to hit the market in the coming weeks.

Many protesters are carrying home-made signs with sayings like, “We’re not lab rats” and “No flu shot no job?”

___

Health Care Workers Protest Mandatory H1N1 Vaccination

By Declan McCullagh

CBS News | Health care workers are planning to take to the streets Tuesday at a rally in front of the Albany, N.Y. state capitol to protest mandatory vaccination.

The rally is intended to call for "freedom of choice in vaccination and health care" and to protest mandatory vaccination for influenza and the H1N1 swine flu. "This vaccine has not been clinically tested to the same degree as the regular flu vaccine," Tara Accavallo, a registered nurse on Long Island, told Newsday. "If something happens to me, if I get seriously injured from this vaccine, who's going to help me?"

While physicians, nurses, and medical technicians may not be known for their willingness to march on state capitols, a recent New York Department of Health requirement has sparked an unusually intense response. The August 13 regulations say that all health care workers who "could potentially expose patients" must be vaccinated for influenza by November 30 unless it would be "detrimental" to the recipient's health. (Any reprieve would be temporary and last only until injection with the vaccine would "no longer be detrimental.")

This raises an obvious and important question: Under what circumstances can government officials order mandatory vaccination? And could the general public be ordered to roll up their sleeves for injections, even if there might be side effects beyond a sore arm or mild fever? The concern in New York also comes as skepticism of vaccination in general seems to be on the rise.

First, some stipulations. Let us stipulate that that routine vaccination has virtually wiped out, at least in developed countries, once-rampant diseases like mumps and whooping cough. The horrors of smallpox -- variola major, which slays about a third of its victims, and the less deadly variola minor -- have vanished, thanks to a successful worldwide vaccination campaign. Even where mandatory vaccination can cause complications, the overall side effects in a population of millions will almost certainly not be as harmful as the infectious disease itself.

On the other hand, let us stipulate that not all vaccines are created equal; some may be safer than others. Out of lack of knowledge or fear, officials may order mandatory vaccinations when the vaccine has not been proven completely safe. And we should remember that the history of our own government when it comes to vaccines is not without its low points (more on this below).

Perhaps the best overview of the legality of mandatory vaccination lies in a 2005 report prepared for the U.S. Congress by the Congressional Research Service. It notes that while the federal government does have the power to order quarantines, public health has historically been the states' responsibility. The CRS report adds: "Generally, federal regulations authorizing the apprehension, detention, examination, or conditional release of individuals are applicable only to individuals coming into a State or possession from a foreign country... Any federal mandatory vaccination program applicable to the general public would likely incorporate similar jurisdictional limitations."

In terms of state authority, there's an important 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case called Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, which was affirmed in 1922. It arose out of a challenge to the state's requirement to obtain a free smallpox vaccine or pay five dollars. The majority voted to upheld the law, saying:

We are not prepared to hold that a minority, residing or remaining in any city or town where smallpox is prevalent, and enjoying the general protection afforded by an organized local government, may thus defy the will of its constituted authorities, acting in good faith for all, under the legislative sanction of the state. If such be the privilege of a minority, then a like privilege would belong to each individual of the community, and the spectacle would be presented of the welfare and safety of an entire population being subordinated to the notions of a single individual who chooses to remain a part of that population.

That seems pretty clear. So are the state laws regarding vaccinations for children attending school -- every state requires vaccines such as measles, rubella, and polio, although medical and religious exemptions do exist. A 2007 Texas executive order suggests that young schoolgirls receive the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which appears to have recently killed a 14-year old girl in England, while providing parents with the right to opt out.

Back to New York for a moment. State Health Commissioner Richard Daines, who is probably feeling a bit of political pressure after deciding that the Empire State will go where no other state has, released a lengthy open letter last week that concludes: "We, as health care workers, owe it to our patients and to society in general to demonstrate our confidence in those scientific standards. Even more importantly, we should reconfirm our noble commitment to the tradition of putting patients' interests first by supporting the mandatory influenza vaccination requirement." He's also holding a media availability after Tuesday's protest.

While no state has gone as far as New York, many other institutions have grappled with the concept of mandatory vaccination. The University of Iowa required all staff to be vaccinated for H1N1, but then backed down in the face of a union lawsuit. The University of Alabama requires proof of meningitis vaccination, without any obvious exceptions. Protests are planned in London on October 3 against mandatory vaccination.

All members of the U.S. military will receive the H1N1 vaccine starting in October, according to an American Forces Press Service article. Massachusetts is encouraging its health care workers to be vaccinated against seasonal influenza by December 15, but isn't mandating it; its public health commissioner has even sent out a statement trying to "dispel rumors" about "forced vaccination."

An article last year in the Harvard Law Review suggests that vaccination should be viewed as two different types: inoculation against easily-transmitted airborne diseases, and inoculation against diseases where the person can more easily prevent infection, such as sexually transmitted diseases. There are stronger arguments for mandatory vaccination in the first category than the second, the article argues:

"It makes sense to create this two-tiered system in which medically necessary vaccines are linked with narrower exemptions and practically necessary vaccines are instead linked with generous exemptions. So, vaccine laws could explicitly state that parents can exempt their children from hepatitis B and HPV vaccines with no questions asked, unlike vaccines for diseases listed elsewhere in the statute."

In general, critics of mandatory vaccination tend to center their objections around side effects, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledge exist, albeit in mild forms. Critics worry about the possibility of a link to autism and the use of a thimerosal, a substance containing mercury that is being phased out, as a preservative; others object on general we-should-decide-this-for-ourselves principles. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a more conservative counterpart to the American Medical Association which opposes mandatory vaccinations for schoolchildren, notes that the vaccine approval process in general has "been contaminated by flawed or incomplete clinical trials."

An article in the British Medical Journal from October 2008 (published as part of a debate) argues that: "Although the physical harms from influenza vaccine are generally minor, there are potential psychosocial harms. Mandatory immunisation infringes civil liberty and autonomy." And the free-market Heartland Institute in Chicago, Ill., argues that mandatory vaccination can violate the Hippocratic Oath: "There is no question of the great benefit of general vaccination for such scourges as poliomyelitis, diphtheria, smallpox, etc. But can we say the same for greatly self-limited rotavirus diarrhea in infants, chickenpox for children, or for the sexually transmitted hepatitis B for both?"

One example of governmental overreaction to infectious disease came in 1976, when an outbreak of swine flu struck Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. After a 19-year-old private died, President Gerald Ford ordered a nationwide vaccination program that eventually reached 40 million people, or about 24 percent of the United States population at the time.

Without the vaccine, Health Secretary F. David Matthews solemnly predicted at the time: "We will see a return of the 1918 flu virus that is the most virulent form of the flu. In 1918 a half million Americans died. The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans in 1976."

The vaccination program turned out to be a mistake. Reports soon surfaced about the vaccine causing a neuromuscular disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome, and vaccinations were halted about two months after they began. One million Americans never died.

Editor: This is an excellent post on the subject of protesting; and the current, G20 NWO boot stomping on the face of liberty, mayhem that injured many and landed several in jail. Was it a surprise that this would happen if people showed up demonstrating? No. We have been covering this buildup deeply over the past year, with several violent clashes exposed during the DNC and RNC, to name a few.

So for the awake, informed, anti-NWO activist to show up wearing a clever shirt and a sign to expose them, is playing right into the hands of the social architects, in my view. Considering that the only contact you will have is the police state minions, your message and anger, will be directed towards them, and they are not the ones pulling the strings. Secondly, the media simply won't cover it, or spin it in the public airwaves, making the protesters either look kooky or violent. Thus, justifying more police state funding, and draconian legislation, in order to protect the public and officials from the dissenters. Third, these events are hotbeds for false flag public destruction and attacks on cops by agent provocateurs, who are actually undercover law enforcement. So in the end, nothing gets accomplished, there is no change from the powers that be, and the public goes on with their lives watching Dancing With The Stars.

The only thing that these events can do, is increase your contact with other like-minded people and help you get over the fact that you are alone in your world views. Besides that, you are just asking for a beat down, jail time, being put on a terrorist watch list, or being the subject of subterfuge. We cannot fight the NWO, we have to pull out of the system as much as possible and let it fall from within. What would have been a better statement of our disgust of this meeting, would have been to ignore it completely and let them spend all this money and time with all of their police state toys, without anyone to use it on. Then people could have met up in a completely different locale and had a positive rally for the society we want. We could have all boycotted the economy in some way during the days of the summit, or drove during the day with your headlights on.

Basically, a novel public collective show of dissent, without any potential negative spin. I don't have all the answers, but I have a sense of the recent historically narrative of protests over the last two decades, and they are becoming less effective and more violent towards the participants. We need to evolve our tactics.

G20 Post Mortem / Open Thread

Kevin

Cryptogon | A few people seem surprised that the U.S. is a police state.

Oh the cops. Oh the poor students. Oh boo hoo, we just want to wave our signs.

The don’t taze me bro generation is obviously going to have to figure this one out the hard way.

My position has always been that people who wave signs at fascists are clinically nuts; holy roller, speaking in tongues, batshit crazy nuts.

Sign waving is not resistance. Sign waving is part of the problem in the same way that voting is part of the problem. How’s that Change working out for the Obama supporters? (Some of those bozos are already talking about how they’re going to get it right in 2012…)

In the few video clips of the G20 protests that I watched, I saw a bunch of zombies with iPhones, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, as the Legion of Doom tested out its new sonic weapons and tear gas lobbing skills.

WTF is the matter with these people? Where does someone get the idea that the way to deal with Darth Vader is to wave a sign at him? Maybe a few, “Fuck the police” tweets will do the trick? Send out invites to join revolutionary sign waving groups on Facebook?!

The Twitbook aspect of this is, frankly, bizarre. Maybe I’ve been out here in the bush too long, but it looks like powerlessness is manifesting itself into a sort of flaccid, me-too technophelia, crossbred with a hamster wheel. This is more embarrassing than anything else.

The U.S. is no longer a country. It’s a company town. If waving signs at the company’s goon squad just makes people look stupid, what does twitbooking about it amount to?

Here are some other ideas:

Eliminate your debt. Take your money off the table. Stop buying stuff that you don’t need. Live well on very little. Grow your own food. Participate in alternative and/or outlawed food economies for what you don’t produce yourself. Barter, or use cash. Support people who do good work. Finally, draw a line in the sand. Don’t tell anyone where that line is, or what the consequences will be if it’s crossed. Don’t wave a sign about it. Don’t twitbook about it. Let the fascists figure it out the hard way.

Authorities again attempt to provoke chaos at global summits to justify brutal police crackdown

Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet | Shocking video has emerged of cops posing as anarchist protesters at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, in yet another example of authorities attempting to provoke chaos at global summits in order to justify a brutal police crackdown.

Footage from Saturday night shows three burly older men who look completely out of place with black bandanas over their face walking alongside young protesters during a march against police brutality in a You Tube clip entitled “G20 Epic Undercover Police Fail”.

The clip would be hilarious if it was not so disturbing. Protesters walking behind what are obviously badly disguised cops claim they broke cameras and acted aggressively towards genuine protesters, as well as carrying gas canisters. During a peaceful demonstration on Saturday night, riot cops savagely attacked protesters with batons and rubber bullets while also assaulting and arresting students who weren’t even part of the demonstration.

Watch the clip below.



At one point one of the undercover cops states, “Let’s not make this too much fun, I’m tired, I’m getting old.”

“Do you think it’s funny to mock our First Amendment rights, asks a demonstrator as onlookers begin to become aware that the men are obviously police officers dressed up as anarchists.

At every single major summit over the past few years, authorities have inserted agent provocateurs into protest groups in order to spy on them and if necessary, provoke violence to justify oppressive police brutality in the eyes of the watching world.

We have documented numerous different occasions where the leadership of the black bloc anarchists were actually working with the authorities to provide a pretext for a police state crackdown.

During the previous G20 protest in London, black bloc anarchists were allowed by police to smash up bank buildings while being accompanied by more press photographers than other protesters in what was obviously a stage-managed spectacle for mass consumption, while legitimate protest groups were refused “permits” to protest by the government.

Following the SPP protests in Canada two years ago, Quebec provincial authorities were forced to admit that three rock-wielding black mask-wearing “anarchists” were in fact police infiltrators used to gather information on protesters.

Video shows two of the provocateurs pick up rocks and try to incite violence before they are outed as cops by legitimate demonstrators. The two thugs then tried to slip behind police lines before their fellow officers were forced to stage their arrest. Again, the fact that they were cops in disguise was later admitted by authorities. Watch the video.



Alex Jones’ film Police State 2: The Takeover exposed how the black bloc anarchists were completely infiltrated and provocateured by the authorities during the violent 1999 WTO protests in Seattle.

The authorities declared a state of emergency, imposed curfews and resorted to nothing short of police state tactics in response to a small minority of hostile black bloc hooligans. Police allowed the black bloc to run riot in downtown Seattle while they concentrated on preventing the movement of peaceful protestors. The film presents clear evidence that the black bloc anarchist group was actually controlled by the state and used to demonize peaceful protesters. Watch the video below.







At the WTO protests in Genoa 2001 a protestor was killed after being shot in the head and run over twice by a police vehicle. The Italian Carabinere also later beat on peaceful protestors as they slept, and even tortured some, at the Diaz School. It later emerged that the police fabricated evidence against the protesters, claiming they were anarchist rioters, to justify their actions. Some Carabiniere officials have since come forward to say they knew of infiltration of the so called black bloc anarchists, and that fellow officers acted as agent provocateurs.

At the Free Trade Area of Americas protests in Miami in late November 2003, more provocateuring was evident. The United Steelworkers of America calling for a congressional investigation, stated that the police intentionally caused violence and arrested and charged hundreds of peaceful protestors. The USWA suggested that billions of dollars supposedly slated for Iraq reconstruction funds are actually being used to subsidize “homeland repression” in America.

Despite being caught over and over again dressed up as anarchists and posing as protesters, authorities are still content to use agent provocateurs in a desperate and underhanded attempt to make heightening levels of police brutality somehow appear as a legitimate response. Since this maneuver has now been totally discredited and everyone is fully aware of it, it’s unlikely that they will be able to get away with it at all for future protests.

Jason Bermas

Prison Planet | In what was possibly the most surreal, horrific, and unimaginable thing I have ever witnessed in my life, 1200 Riot Police and Military Personal rabidly attacked a group of well under 300 American citizens, many of them just students that were unaware there was even a protest going on. They then expanded their perimeter and shut large areas of Oakland down. This is how my last experience at the G20 in Pittsburgh went down, out of control authorities mercilessly attacking an unarmed crowd with batons, tear gas, pepper spray, sound weapons, and rubber bullets. Around 10pm on Friday night, long after the vast majority of dignitaries and protesters had left, it became evident that the outrageous show of force by the Military and Police was not enough to stave off their thirst for blood.

When I first arrived on the scene Luke Rudowski of We Are Change and a small group of protesters were peaceably assembling among a much larger number of college students just out for another weekend of fun in Schenley Plaza. Around ten minutes later Rob Dew arrived and we began filming the entire scene, it was evident that the number of police already in the area and the amount who were massing and surrounding the perimeter was extremely alarming.

As Luke bull horned that the people in this park meant the police no physical harm, and that they were simply exercising their right to free speech, a couple of masked individuals began to scream “He doesn’t speak for us”. These few provocateurs and well meaning idiots could have been easily dealt with by a handful of regular police officers dressed in their standard uniform, however that solution does not offer the pretext for over a thousand heavily armed psychotics to encircle and engage the American people.

I began to become extremely frightened as to what the outcome of the situation was going to be as I began to witness LRAD weapons showing up, dogs beginning to circle the perimeter, and then everyone putting on their gas masks. During all of this I was threatened with arrest three times and physically charged and chased by one of the officers. At that point I realized they were about to attack, and they did. Hundreds of armed to the teeth trained professionals began their march towards innocent young men and women, and then took it much further by launching tear gas canisters, battening people trying to leave, and firing rubber bullets randomly into the crowd. Luckily I was able to slip through the cracks of a blockade of only 6 or so riot thugs as they tried to amass more in that area and form another brutal line.

I personally witnessed a young man on a bike being beaten for no reason whatsoever and as he fled the officers then beat his bike. When the young man tried to retrieve his bike his knuckle was broken. Another man was gassed so badly he had to be taken to the hospital. This is how “Peace Officers” treat us?

During the very quick first burst of the madness I lost touch with Infowars Producer and Cameraman Rob Dew, I immediately thought he had been arrested, and I was correct. He was illegally detained and digitally fingerprinted in a separate process for “protesters”. Rob was cuffed all evening in a room full of other detainees, and was not released until 10:20 am the next morning with no charges being brought against him. Military and Police mocked them as Americans were being detained and processed often laughing at college students that had been beaten for no other reason for being in the wrong place around their campus that evening.

Luke Rudowski received multiple battens to his back and legs as the jackals descended on him with force, even though he had made it clear to all of them he wished them no violence. For his peaceful efforts Luke and Lee from We Are Change were separated from the rest of the more than one hundred detainees and sent to State Prison. Luke was strip searched, mocked, and charged with Disorderly Conduct and Unlawful Assembly, and will have to go back to Pittsburgh Wednesday to face charges. The Military and Police laughed as they took note of the “Superstar” that had been all over the news on channel 11 and even National NBC, taking a sick pleasure in the torture of another human being.

Welcome to the New Amerika.
__

Related: Video From G20 the Corporate Media Will Never Show You

G20 protesters blasted by sonic cannon

Civil Liberties Groups: Police Overreacted At G-20

By Michael Rubinkam

AP | Police used all the nonlethal tools at their disposal to thwart protesters at the Group of 20 summit this week, firing bean bags, hurling canisters of smoke and pepper spray, using flash-bang grenades and batons and deploying a high-tech sound-blasting device meant to push back crowds.

It was all a bit much for civil liberties groups and protesters.

They decried what they called a heavy-handed and unwarranted police response, saying riot officers focused on largely peaceful, if unsanctioned, demonstrations when they should have been paying more attention to small groups of vandals that smashed windows of city businesses.

"It's not just intimidation, it's disruption and in some cases outright prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out," said Witold "Vic" Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "In a week when we need freedom of speech more than ever, free speech died in Pittsburgh this week."

He added that "the deployment of police seems to be more geared toward suppressing lawful demonstrations than actually preventing crime."

Hundreds of riot police broke up an impromptu gathering Thursday night in Schenley Plaza near the University of Pittsburgh campus, where large numbers of university students mingled with smaller groups of protesters, including anarchists.

The plaza is a quarter-mile from the building where world leaders were assembled, but the dignitaries were gone by the time police declared the gathering illegal and fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke.

Legal observers at the gathering saw police surrounding, chasing and arresting students who weren't involved in the protest, said Paige Cram, spokeswoman for the National Lawyers Guild, a liberal legal-aid group. She called the show of force "an ominous spectacle."

Franklyn Smith, 58, a mental health case manager who was protesting at Schenley Plaza, said police tackled him.

"He threw me to the ground. He kept smashing my face into the ground. Then about two or three other cops came over. They jumped on me," said Smith, who was released from the city jail around 7 a.m. Friday and went straight to the ER for treatment of a badly bruised face.

A video posted Friday on YouTube shows a group of Pitt students briefly trapped on the outdoor stairwell of a campus building, evidently exposed to gaseous pepper spray and unable to move because riot police were blocking the bottom and top of the stairs. The students had been standing on a second-floor balcony, observing the clash between police and protesters on the street below.

Around the same time, a few blocks away, windows were smashed at some 10 businesses. Police made 42 arrests near the university, but it wasn't clear if they caught any of the vandals.

Experts say that anarchists successfully deployed a tactic in Pittsburgh that they have often used at other protests, leading a large group of people toward police, then slipping out of the crowd to commit mayhem elsewhere.

University of Pittsburgh spokesman John Fedele said police had a difficult task Thursday night because a small group of people bent on causing destruction sought cover in the larger crowd of Pitt students.

"It is regrettable if any innocent bystanders - including any Pitt students, in particular - were harmed in any way. It is fortunate, however, that no one appears to have been seriously injured," he said in a statement.

Pittsburgh Sgt. Lavonnie Bickerstaff would not answer questions about police deployment or use of force, but Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has praised officers for their work to minimize property damage.

And with so many world leaders in the city, authorities had to gird for a possible act of terrorism, not just perform crowd control.

"The mayor made it clear.... that our officers responded quickly and effectively. He's proud of the job our officers are doing," his spokeswoman, Joanna Doven, said Friday.

But Sam Rosenfeld, chairman of the Densus Group, an international security consulting firm, faulted police for what he said was a too-aggressive posture that might have incited the crowds on Thursday. Rosenfeld, who was in Pittsburgh this week observing the protests, said police were unable to distinguish between peaceful protesters and the relatively few bent on causing trouble.

"We see the switch gets flicked and the situation escalates," said Rosenfeld, who did praise police for avoiding mass arrests.

Friday's "People's March," meanwhile, attracted some 3,000 people, but the organizers had received a city permit and the protest did not result in the kind of chaos seen Thursday.

AP | Police used all the nonlethal tools at their disposal to thwart protesters at the Group of 20 summit this week, firing bean bags, hurling canisters of smoke and pepper spray, using flash-bang grenades and batons and deploying a high-tech sound-blasting device meant to push back crowds.

It was all a bit much for civil liberties groups and protesters.

They decried what they called a heavy-handed and unwarranted police response, saying riot officers focused on largely peaceful, if unsanctioned, demonstrations when they should have been paying more attention to small groups of vandals that smashed windows of city businesses.

"It's not just intimidation, it's disruption and in some cases outright prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out," said Witold "Vic" Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "In a week when we need freedom of speech more than ever, free speech died in Pittsburgh this week."

He added that "the deployment of police seems to be more geared toward suppressing lawful demonstrations than actually preventing crime."

Hundreds of riot police broke up an impromptu gathering Thursday night in Schenley Plaza near the University of Pittsburgh campus, where large numbers of university students mingled with smaller groups of protesters, including anarchists.

The plaza is a quarter-mile from the building where world leaders were assembled, but the dignitaries were gone by the time police declared the gathering illegal and fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke.

Legal observers at the gathering saw police surrounding, chasing and arresting students who weren't involved in the protest, said Paige Cram, spokeswoman for the National Lawyers Guild, a liberal legal-aid group. She called the show of force "an ominous spectacle."

Franklyn Smith, 58, a mental health case manager who was protesting at Schenley Plaza, said police tackled him.

"He threw me to the ground. He kept smashing my face into the ground. Then about two or three other cops came over. They jumped on me," said Smith, who was released from the city jail around 7 a.m. Friday and went straight to the ER for treatment of a badly bruised face.

A video posted Friday on YouTube shows a group of Pitt students briefly trapped on the outdoor stairwell of a campus building, evidently exposed to gaseous pepper spray and unable to move because riot police were blocking the bottom and top of the stairs. The students had been standing on a second-floor balcony, observing the clash between police and protesters on the street below.

Around the same time, a few blocks away, windows were smashed at some 10 businesses. Police made 42 arrests near the university, but it wasn't clear if they caught any of the vandals.

Experts say that anarchists successfully deployed a tactic in Pittsburgh that they have often used at other protests, leading a large group of people toward police, then slipping out of the crowd to commit mayhem elsewhere.

University of Pittsburgh spokesman John Fedele said police had a difficult task Thursday night because a small group of people bent on causing destruction sought cover in the larger crowd of Pitt students.

"It is regrettable if any innocent bystanders - including any Pitt students, in particular - were harmed in any way. It is fortunate, however, that no one appears to have been seriously injured," he said in a statement.

Pittsburgh Sgt. Lavonnie Bickerstaff would not answer questions about police deployment or use of force, but Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has praised officers for their work to minimize property damage.

And with so many world leaders in the city, authorities had to gird for a possible act of terrorism, not just perform crowd control.

"The mayor made it clear.... that our officers responded quickly and effectively. He's proud of the job our officers are doing," his spokeswoman, Joanna Doven, said Friday.

But Sam Rosenfeld, chairman of the Densus Group, an international security consulting firm, faulted police for what he said was a too-aggressive posture that might have incited the crowds on Thursday. Rosenfeld, who was in Pittsburgh this week observing the protests, said police were unable to distinguish between peaceful protesters and the relatively few bent on causing trouble.

"We see the switch gets flicked and the situation escalates," said Rosenfeld, who did praise police for avoiding mass arrests.

Friday's "People's March," meanwhile, attracted some 3,000 people, but the organizers had received a city permit and the protest did not result in the kind of chaos seen Thursday.

London Guardian | Only a few hundreds protesters took to the streets of Pittsburgh to mark the opening day of the G20 summit of world leaders, but the police were taking no chances.

Sonic weapons or long-range acoustic devices have been used by the US military overseas, notably against Somali pirates and Iraqi insurgents.

But US security forces turned the piercing sound on their own citizens yesterday to widespread outrage. Pittsburgh officials told the New York Times that it was the first time "sound cannon" had been used publicly.

[Warning: the video below contains very loud audio from the start]



The sonic weapon appear to be more effective than the Metropolitan police's highly contentious kettling tactics used against G20 protesters in London. But it is equally controversial.

It is feared the sounds emitted are loud enough to damage eardrums and even cause fatal aneurysms.

In the videos here, we get an idea of what the federalized and militarized police in Pittsburgh really think of the First Amendment. The victims shown below are not government provocateurs or anarchists, but middle class students.

Wired | A nonlethal device best known for beating back pirates off the coast of Somalia was deployed by local police in San Diego at political gatherings, and even at a competition to build sand castles, according to a local publication.

“The [Long Range Acoustic Device] was stationed by San Diego County Sheriff deputies at a recent town hall forum hosted by Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) in Spring Valley and at a subsequent town hall with Congressman Darrell Issa (R-San Diego),” East Country Magazine reported after reviewing official records. It was also parked at a local sand-building competition along the beach.

Though the Long Range Acoustic Device can be used for hailing, it has also been employed as a weapon, most prominently in 2005 by a cruise ship, which used it to ward off attacking pirates. In fact, the device, which was developed after the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, is designed precisely for that sort of mission. It can permanently damage hearing, depending on how it’s used.

Deploying the Long Range Acoustic Device to local events has provided ammunition to critics of Police Sheriff Bill Gore, who was the agent-in-charge of the FBI’s infamous 1992 Ruby Ridge siege. In response to questions posed by East Country Magazine about use of the technology, Gore said that officers had the appropriate training and that the device’s use as a deterrent is just a “precaution in case you need it.”

Editor: The Tea Party movement has been hijacked by the religious right, neocons and media shills on the alphabet networks like Glen Beck. Failing to break the left-right paradigm, the attendees of these events, for the most part, fail to see the connections that link both parties to the controlled erosion of our civil liberties and monetary wealth. Instead, the focus of these upset Americans is on the puppet Obama who is just a front man for global architects who control both sides of the political spectrum. By associating all government misdeeds with the new presidential puppet, they are able to trick the public into voting the opposition party in during the next election cycle.

A genuine social movement would enable a paradigm shift to occur, which would enhance the public's understanding of the true geopolitical construct that sustains the status quo. This will allow people to stop fixating on presidential appointments and start focusing on the control system itself, and the architects of the global agenda who manipulate both sides of the political spectrum. The result of the political manipulation is displayed in this article in which the liberals take the bait and go down the partisan highway. Falsely associating all people opposed to the misdeeds of the corporate governmental system as right-wingers, although a vast majority were against this same system headed by Bush. The puppets are interchangeable, but the agenda moves forward, while securing itself with false partisan labels, that distracts the public from the global cabal working through both parties.

Read more of my analysis of this cyclical political conundrum we find ourselves in.

Alternet | Glenn Beck will tell you that this weekend's march of right-wing activists on Washington was six months in the making.

Don't believe a word of it. Try 40 years.

As disgruntled white taxpayers joined conspiracy theorists, gun enthusiasts, state-sovereignty activists and outright racists on Pennsylvania Avenue, the long-time leaders of the American right, whose pedigrees go back to the 1964 presidential campaign of Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., no doubt witnessed a day they thought might never come.

Never before has the right taken to the streets in such numbers. (Estimates range between 50,000 and 100,000 attending the post-mach rally at the U.S. Capitol building.) Marching has long been the province of the left, most notably in the civil rights movement. But the election of the nation's first African-American president, a moderate liberal, in a time of economic crisis, yielded right-wing leaders the gold of backlash.

While the foot-soldiers of the Tea Party movement give it a more secular appearance than its recent predecessors, the movement is the right's replacement for a religious right that has weakened since 2004, when it helped win a second term for George W. Bush. The tactics, however are the same: just as the religious right subverts the Christian faith in the service of its authoritarian, business-friendly goals, so, too, does the Tea Party movement subvert the American civic religion characterized by love of country, invocation of the Founders and veneration of the Constitution.

At the dawn of the cultural evolution of the 1960s, a handful of right-wing activists and intellectuals banded together to form a philosophical movement that became known as the New Right. These were the people who won Barry Goldwater the Republican presidential nomination, only to see their candidate meet disastrous results in his race against Democrat Lyndon Johnson of Texas. But the right is never truly defeated; its leaders are patient, and they learn from their errors. When they're out of power, they stay busy, building institutions and mailing lists, all the while waiting for their moment to strike.

And so, in 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency, largely thanks to the tireless efforts of New Right leaders.

Out of their tiny numbers, they went on from the Goldwater campaign to found the religious right, a textbook example of ground-level organizing that led to a national electoral victory with the election of Reagan. And they are at it again.

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By Cinday Sheehan

“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love…” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1958

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal…” Dr. King, 1967

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox | I remember back in the good ol’ days of 2005 and 2006 when being against the wars was not only politically correct, but it was very popular. I remember receiving dozens of awards, uncountable accolades and even was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Those were the halcyon days of the anti-war movement before the Democrats took over the government (off of the backs of the anti-war movement) and it became anathema to be against the wars and I became unpopular on all sides. I guess at that point, I could have gone with the flow and pretended to support the violence so I could remain popular, but I think I have to fiercely hold on to my core values whether I am “liked” or not.

Killing is wrong no matter if it is state-sanction murder or otherwise. Period. Not too much more to say on that subject, except what I quote above from Dr. King.

However, while the so-called left is obsessed over supporting a very crappy Democratic health care plan, people in far away countries are being deprived of their health and very lives by the Obama Regime’s continuation of Bush’s ruinous foreign policy.

I was never dismayed when the so-called right attacked me and called me names for protesting Bush. However, something inside me gets a little sick when I hear people who claim to be peace activists supporting the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, a policy that is not like Bush’s in the fact that it’s much worse.

I have been called a “racist” from the so-called left. In these people’s opinion, I was totally justified in protesting Bush, but I am a racist for protesting the same policies under Obama. When I opposed Bush’s policies, I was called traitor, anti-American, anti-Semitic, and other names I cannot print. Name-calling is a great way to shut down critical thinking and discussion. And, not to mention, I think the murder of innocent life in the Iraq-Af-Pak regions is racist and morally corrupt.

There are many people in this country who oppose Obama because they’re racist, but I am not one of them. I oppose Obama’s policies because they are wrong…again, period!

One cannot obfuscate when innocent lives are being destroyed, here and abroad. We cannot allow “political reality” to get in the way of morality. Human sacrifice is not worth the political reality. Violence, killing, war and more war are NEVER the solution to any problem. Period.

If Obama has violent shadow forces around him pulling him in the direction of violence, which begets more violence and more resistance; then we, especially people in the peace or anti-war movements need to gather and organize to pull him in the direction towards peaceful conflict resolution and solutions that aren’t based on exploiting people’s fears, anxieties or ignorance.

I am going to Martha’s Vineyard because we have the moral high ground. The war supporters aren’t going to protest Obama’s wars. They are strangely silent over his foreign policy, unless they are praising it.

I am going to Martha’s Vineyard because someone has to speak for the babies of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that do not deserve the horrible fate that has been handed to them by the US Military Industrial Complex. The voiceless need a voice, and even if I am called every name in the book by all sides, I will speak up for them.

I am going to Martha’s Vineyard because so many people have been blinded to the fact that the system has momentum that rolls on and over and around no matter who is the titular head of the system.

Let’s just pretend that elections are fair in this country and my candidate, Cynthia McKinney, won for president. If she wasn’t able to rein in the systemic violence, then I would be going wherever she vacationed to protest her policies, too. I guess at that point, I would not only be called “racist,” but I would be called a “self-hating female.”

In a recent conversation someone was trying to convince me that I should not be so stridently opposed to Obama’s policies and I responded that today 75 people were killed and 300 people were wounded in a bomb blast in Iraq and 26 mostly women and children were killed in a wedding party in Afghanistan this week and she said: “Oh, that wouldn’t be acceptable if it happened here.”

And that ‘s the problem: it’s not acceptable if it happens anywhere, to anybody, no matter who is President of the USA.

Not only is the death toll mounting for innocent civilians but also is once again climbing for our troops.

While the “festivities” are occurring on Martha’s Vineyard next week, there are families all over the world who will never again be able to fully feel festive. Ahhhh…. everyone should just stand down, relax and sip an Obamarita on the beach…Hope reigns once again in The Empire.

And, yes, we are going to Martha’s Vineyard to get attention. We vehemently want to call attention to all of the points I have made above.

Even though there is a small anti-war, peace movement in this country, there still is one and this movement has the moral high ground and punditry, personal attacks, glitzy marketing, or “political realities won’t drown us out.

Members of Dr. King’s own caucus tried to convince him not to publicly speak out against the Vietnam war, and that’s when he delivered his brilliant Beyond Vietnam speech at the Riverside Church in NYC exactly one year before he was assassinated. That speech was in response to the critics. Dr. King took the moral high ground when he said: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

That time has now come, once again. By our silence we are betraying humanity.

Love the President or hate him, or anywhere in between, but we must speak out loudly and without any timidity against the institutional violence of the US Empire.

By Robert Digitale

Santa Rosa Press-Democrat | The Bohemian Grove, a redwood-spired sanctuary to powerful men for 120 years, today opens its gates near Monte Rio for its annual, two-week encampment.

The gathering of the all-male Bohemian Club is expected to draw a small group of protesters this weekend when the bulk of the guests are expected to arrive. The encampment lasts through July 26.

The small demonstration contrasts with some of the larger-scale protests of earlier years, usually coinciding with Republican presidential administrations over the past three decades. Every Republican president since Herbert Hoover reportedly has belonged to the 2,500-member club.

Mary Moore, who helped found the Bohemian Grove Action Network in the 1980s, said she is happy that new activists are still trying to draw attention to leaders of government, banking, business and the military who gather in the grove.

“I’m just glad to see anybody out there,” Moore said of this year’s demonstrators.

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Related: Power Elite Begin Annual Bohemian Grove Rituals