Tweeter button Facebook button

November 17, 2011

You are here: Home / Archives for Psychology

ANTI-MUSLIM ‘HATE CRIMES’ UP 50 PERCENT IN US: FBI

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

So-called “hate crimes” against Muslims rose nearly 50 percent in the United States in 2010, according to FBI statistics released Monday.

The figures, part of a report on hate crimes, showed actions motivated by anti-Muslim prejudice rose to 160 in 2010 from 107 the prior year.

Anti-Jewish crimes were down from the previous year at 887 incidents from 931 the previous year. The number of crimes motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment rose to 58 last year, from 51 in 2009.

The total number of incidents classified as hate crimes rose marginally in 2010 to 6,628. Of the total, 47.3 percent were motivated by race and 20 percent by religion, the FBI statistics showed.

The organization Human Rights First expressed dismay over the figures.

“After hate crime declined in 2009, it’s disturbing to see it rise again in 2010,” said the group’s Paul Legendre.

“The rise in anti-Muslim violence is particularly significant. Human Rights First has long maintained that anti-Muslim violence, as well as other forms of hate crime, must be viewed and responded to as a serious violation of human rights. The US government can and must do more to confront these abuses.”

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/anti-muslim-hate-crimes-up-50-percent.html

Filed Under: Corruption, Hate, Islam, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Religion, Rights, Spirituality

IS EMPATHY IN OUR GENES?

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A large part of how we relate to people emotionally may be hardwired into our DNA. A new study suggests that character traits such as being open, caring, and trusting are so strongly linked to a certain gene variation that a total stranger, simply by watching us listen to another person, may be able to guess whether we have the variation with a high degree of accuracy.

Previous studies have linked several personality traits to variations in this gene, which acts as a docking station (or receptor) for the brain chemical oxytocin — often referred to as the “love hormone” because it plays a role in social behaviors such as bonding, empathy, and anxiety.

People who have two “G” variants of this oxytocin receptor gene tend to have better social skills and higher self-esteem, research has shown. Conversely, those with at least one “A” variant tend to have a harder time dealing with stress, worse mental-health outcomes, and a greater likelihood of being autistic.

“We’ve known that genotype can influence personality, but we’d only ever studied what goes on inside a person — things like behavioral scales and heart-rate measurements,” says Serena Rodrigues Saturn, Ph.D., a senior author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University, in Corvallis. “This is the first time anyone has observed how different genotypes manifest themselves in behaviors that complete strangers can pick up on.”

To explore the relationship between a person’s genetics and demeanor, Rodrigues Saturn and her colleagues recruited 23 romantic couples, and videotaped them while one partner recalled and discussed a time of suffering in their lives. The other partner, who had given a saliva sample to determine his or her genotype, was simply asked to sit and listen.

The researchers then showed 20 seconds of each video clip to a group of 116 people. None of the viewers knew the video subjects, and they watched the clips with the sound off so they had no knowledge of the situations being discussed. They were then asked to rate how kind, caring, and trustworthy the listening partner seemed, based only on visual cues.

“They looked for things like nodding along with their partner, holding eye contact, keeping an open body posture,” Rodrigues Saturn says. “Those people were judged as more social and caring, as opposed to others who seemed much more aloof.”

Although they expected to find some association between the subjects’ genotypes and their rankings, the researchers were “blown away” by how accurate the observers’ intuition actually was, Rodrigues Saturn says. Out of the 10 people who were ranked as “most prosocial,” six had the GG genotype, and of the 10 ranked “least trusted,” nine were carriers of at least one A variant.

The findings were published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Keith Kendrick, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, in Chengdu, says it’s important to note that genes besides the oxytocin receptor gene — not to mention other, non-genetic factors — influence social behavior as well. Oxytocin receptors have been shown to be modified by a person’s environment, for example, so life experiences presumably play a large role too, he says.

“Just because you have an ‘A’ version of this one receptor gene clearly does not mark you down as a completely unsocial individual,” says Kendrick, who was not involved in the study. “Obviously many different genes contribute to something as complex as social behavior, but it is interesting that this particular one appears to be so influential.”

One genotype isn’t necessarily better or healthier than the other, Rodrigues Saturn says. Although scientists used to refer to the gene’s “A” variant as a “risk” variant (because it increases risk of autism and social dysfunction), many experts now think of the variations as just that: variations that may—along with many other forces — play out in personalities.

“It’s important to understand that some people are… naturally more held back, or may be overcome by their own personal stresses and have a hard time relating to others,” Rodrigues Saturn says. Putting these people in more comfortable environments that naturally induce the production of oxytocin may help to coax them out of their shells and help them feel more “warm and fuzzy,” she says.

 

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/15/health/empathy-genes/index.html

Filed Under: Corporations, Drugs, Education, Genetics, Health, Medical Industry, Money, Neuroscience, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Population, Psychology, Science, Survival

OCCUPY WALL STREET: POLICE VIOLENCE REVEALS A CORRUPT SYSTEM

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Better-off Occupy Wall Street protesters are learning something about the relationship between citizen and state

At four in the morning in lower Manhattan, as what remains of the Occupy Wall Street encampment is loaded into trash compacters, some protesters have still not given up on the police. Kevin Sheneberger tries to engage one NYPD officer in a serious debate about the role of law enforcement in public protest. Then he sees them loading his friend’s tent into the back of a rubbish truck. Behind him, a teenage girl holds a hastily written sign saying: “NYPD, we trusted you – you were supposed to protect us!”

The sentiment is a familiar one. Across Europe, over a year of demonstrations, occupations and civil disobedience, anti-austerity protesters have largely shifted from declaring solidarity with the police – as fellow workers whose jobs and pensions are also under threat – to outrage and anger at state violence against unarmed protesters. Following last month’s police brutality in Oakland, and today’s summary eviction of the Occupy Wall Street camp, American activists too are reaching the conclusion that “police protect the 1%”.

The notion that law enforcement is there to protect a wealthy elite from the rest of the population is not news to those protesters from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds, many of whom have been subject to intimidation in their communities for years, but for those from more privileged backgrounds, the first spurt of pepper spray to the face is an important education in the nature of the relationship between state and citizen in the west. “Who do you guys work for?” Shouts one Manhattan protester, as police load arrestees into a van. “You work for JP Morgan Bank!”

In times of economic and democratic crisis, it makes sense for faltering governments to use police violence and the threat of arrest to bully citizens into compliance. In the context of protest, however, police harassment has three other, important effects. The first and most important of these is consciousness-raising.

The spectacle of police beating and brutalizing unarmed civilians for the crime of sitting on the pavement and demanding a fairer world brings home the point of the struggle to public and protesters alike. The second is galvanizing: attacks on peaceful protesters rarely make the police or government look anything but weak and cowardly, and have tended only to increase public support for civil disobedience. “This is going to explode now,” 26-year-old Katie tells me, as we watch demonstrators marched out of Zuccotti Park one by one. “They don’t realize what they’ve done.”

Fighting the police can focus the energy of a movement – but it can also drain that energy. In Britain, a year of arrests and vicious crackdowns have left anti-cuts protesters debilitated and depleted, and the challenge for the American movement will be to remember its purpose in the face of police brutality. “That’s the whole point of violent resistance,” says Sheneberger. “It exposes the corruption of the power that’s resisting you.”

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/15-1

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Education, Employment, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Martial Law, Medical Industry, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, Wealthy Elite

JOBCENTRE STAFF ‘SENT GUIDELINES ON HOW TO DEAL WITH CLAIMANTS’ SUICIDE THREATS’

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Employees ‘receive six-point plan telling them to take each threat seriously’ as clamp on benefits takes effect

Staff working for jobcentres and other Department for Work and Pensions contractors have been given guidelines on how to deal with suicide threats from claimants as the squeeze on benefits takes hold.

A document sent to jobcentre staff in April details what it calls a “new policy for all DWP businesses to help them manage suicide and self-harm declarations from customers”.

The guidelines include a “six-point plan” for staff to follow which says: “Some customers may say they intend to self-harm or kill themselves as a threat or a tactic to ‘persuade’, others will mean it. It is very hard to distinguish between the two … For this reason, all declarations must be taken seriously.”

The internal document was sent to the Guardian by a senior jobcentre employee who has worked for the DWP for more than 20 years. It was accompanied by a letter from the source that said: “Absolutely nobody has ever seen this guidance before, leading staff to believe it has been put together ahead of the incapacity benefit and disability living allowance cuts.”

The employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “We were a bit shocked. Are we preparing ourselves to be like the Samaritans? The fact that we’ve dealt with the public for so many years without such guidance has made people feel a bit fearful about what’s coming.”

The DWP said that the new guidelines were not related to any recent policy changes and had been in development since 2009. “This guidance is about supporting our staff and ensuring we can help our customers.

“It is right that a customer-facing organisation that serves over 20 million, including the most vulnerable in our society, has guidance such as this in place.”

The team leader said the guidance had alarmed people in their team: “We’ve suddenly got this new aspect to our job. The bigger picture is people here are wondering how savage these cuts are going to be. And we’re the frontline staff having to deal with the fallout from these changes. ”

Julie Tipping, an appeals officer for Disability Solutions, represents claimants who try to overturn decisions made following work capability assessment tests that they are fit for work.

She says that in the last year, two of her clients have made “real attempts” at suicide after a decision was made that they were fit for work. Both were taken to hospital and subsequently sectioned.

“It’s real and true. A lot of people think these people are crying wolf to get their money, but that’s not the case. They are suffering from real problems and can’t face it any more.”

Tipping said the pressure on vulnerable clients was “the cumulative effect of all these welfare changes. The test is simply not fit for purpose for assessing mental health problems. That’s on top of moving people on to jobseeker’s allowance, and all of the conditionality and risk of sanctions that goes with that.”

The Guardian revealed last month that some jobcentres were setting targets for advisers to stop people’s benefits for not meeting conditions attached to their jobseeker’s allowance.

A whistleblower said that the pressure on staff was leading to vulnerable claimants being targeted for sanctions. The targets have since been removed. But thousands of claimants of incapacity benefit and employment support allowance are being reassessed to see if they should be considered fit for work and moved on to jobseeker’s allowance.

Another jobcentre adviser said: “People have been coming off sickness benefits and thrown onto jobseeker’s allowance. It’s problematic because some customers are clearly not fit to work, and they are clearly very distressed. When you sense this you feel really upset because the system is allowing them to get like this and you feel part of the processing machine.”Eleanor Lisney, of Disabled People Against Cuts, said that the thought of being moved on to jobseeker’s allowance was like a sword hanging over the heads of disabled groups and she feared an increase in related suicides.

 

Source: https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/society/2011/may/08/jobcentre-staff-guidelines-suicide-threats

Filed Under: Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Health, Income Inequality, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Survival, Wealthy Elite, Welfare Benefits

Addiction Discriminates? What That Means in Today’s Troubled Economy

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

With America facing the greatest income gap since the Great Depression, the largely unpublicized link between financial inequality and drug addiction suggests big trouble ahead.

For decades now, we’ve branded addiction “an equal opportunity disease.” And judging from the largely white, middle-class people who populate most AA meetings and rehabs, it is.

But while no sector of society is immune from substance abuse, addiction does discriminate. Examples abound: “drug problems” among college grads is nearly a third lower than those for high school dropouts, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and Health. Unemployed people are twice as likely to be addicts as people with jobs. With America facing the greatest income gap since the Great Depression, the largely unpublicized link between financial inequality and drug addiction suggests big trouble ahead.

Of course, the causal connection between poverty and substance use runs both ways. People who are suffering from alcohol or drug problems are obviously more likely to drop out of school or lose their jobs, while those who don’t have the education and skills to find a job in this fast-changing, increasingly high-tech economy not only increase face increased odds of addiction but also dramatically lower odds of recovery.

Stigma keeps addiction low on the list of “causes”; if, for purposes of raising funds and sympathy, the public face of recovery looks most like the people who have the resources to donate—with a celebrity or two thrown in—what’s the beef?

For example, Americans earning less than $20,000 a year are half as likely to successfully quit smoking—and nearly one third less likely to end a cocaine addiction—than those making $70,000 a year or more.

The recovery community has typically shied away from acknowledging these inconvenient truths. For one thing, addiction is so painful and destructive—and sobriety so difficult and one-day-at-a-time—that distinctions based on class or race can seem churlish. For another, stigma keeps addiction low on the list of “causes”; if, for purposes of raising funds and sympathy, the public face of recovery looks most like the people who have the resources to donate—with a celebrity or two thrown in—what’s the beef? Still, among ourselves, we need to admit the truth: addiction is disproportionately concentrated among the poor, and, consequently, among blacks and Hispanics.

Social problems plaguing the poor are largely ignored as intractable, a given of the invisible “underclass.” But as more and more Americans in the middle class become poorer, if not impoverished, by our ongoing economic crises—the implosion of the financial industry (goodbye IRAs and retirement funds), the raft of foreclosures and 10% unemployment (farewell to the bedrock American belief in a house and a job)—denying the link between income and addiction keeps us from finding workable solutions for the explosion in addictive behavior all around us. The most potent anti-craving medications in the world won’t prevent relapse among people who lack skills, job opportunities and hope.

It’s important to emphasize that drawing attention to the increased vulnerability to addiction that poverty poses is in no way meant to pit addict against addict or to sew discord. There are all too many middle-class and rich people in this country battling various addictions. But if we continue to ignore the special role that the lack of education and employment play in fermenting the growing drug problem, we are likely to leave them out of the solution when it comes to crafting treatment and prevention.

Instead, we need to address the specific social and economic problems that have made the US one of the most drugged-out countries in the world. The magic-wand policy answer would be, of course, to cut economic inequality. Almost without exception, nations, and even US states, where the concentration of wealth is greatest have not only more addictions but also more obesity, heart disease, stroke, mental illness and other major health problems than those with less inequality. The greater the inequality, the higher the murder rate, too.

These differences relate not to overall amount of wealth in industrialized countries but to how the money is distributed among the population. So why does inequality per se have such a profound impact on health, including addiction?

Like other primates, humans are hierarchical creatures: there are alphas and betas and so on down the line for both males and females. However, humans also have an innate desire for fairness. The reason children are so quick to say, “That’s not fair,” when their siblings get what seems to be a bigger piece of cake is not because parents teach them to measure their portions but because our brains predispose us to prefer at least some degree of equality—or at the very least rational explanation of unfair distributions.

Numerous studies demonstrate this preference. A major study conducted by the noted Duke University economist and author Dan Ariely found that Americans would favor a system of wealth distribution closer to the one found in Sweden (one of the world’s most egalitarian countries) than the current status quo in the United States. The 5,522 participants surveyed tended to believe that our existing wealth distribution was much closer to equitable than it is—before the crash made us much more aware of the reality.

Study after study has also found that people will pay to punish others who treat them unfairly, even when it isn’t in their own economic interest to do so. While people obviously often selfishly seek their own individual advantages, the idea that we prefer a Darwinian “dog eat dog” world over one in which people have a fair chance at winning through hard work is simply not supported by the data. We’re hierarchical, but we also crave justice.

This is probably related to the fact that we evolved in tight-knit, highly egalitarian groups in which selfishness was highly discouraged because survival required cooperation. Whatever the case, even in the most egalitarian societies, there is a survival difference between those on top and those on the bottom. But that difference is greatly magnified when economic inequality is high. A stress abuse of mortality among all human beings is stress, which is the primary factor in a long list of fatal illnesses. By and large, wealthier people are more equipped to insulate themselves from the stressors of daily life. But people in poverty suffer through a much the greater degree of uncertainty and insecurity, both of which exacerbate chronic stress. Even at the top of the financial pyramid, however, competition, responsibility, and fear of failure take a constant toll.

Meanwhile, chronically elevated stress hormone levels increase the risk of virtually every illness you can name: not just addictions, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but also infectious diseases, infant mortality and most cancers.

In one famous study of British civil servants, people on the bottom rung of the hierarchy suffered mortality rates three times higher than those on the top at every age—and the difference was graded sequentially from top to bottom. Only about one third of the difference in death rates was accounted for by factors like smoking and obesity—the rest was caused by the stress itself, not self-medication to try to cope with it.

Keep in mind that those on the bottom weren’t unemployed or even poor: they were working class, and because Britain has a national health care system, their worse health was not due to lack of access to medical services. Further, the US is even more unequal than the UK: in America, the ratio of CEO to worker pay is now 185 to one; in Great Britain, that figure is 28 to one (and they’re considered one of the most inequitable countries in Western Europe).

Although direct comparisons between countries on rates of drug problems are hard to make, one 2003 study contrasted rates of active drug dependence (the DSM diagnostic term for “addiction”) among Americans to that of Brits. It found a drug dependence rate of 1.5% in the U.S. and 0.5% in the UK: three times lower.

America, as many of us may remember, used to be far less unequal: in the postwar years from 1948 to 1985, on average, annual American income grew by $21,162. Some 60% of that growth went to the bottom 90% of earners. In contrast, between 1986 and 2008, average yearly take-home grew by a mere $6,894—and 100% went to the top 10%. In fact, on average, the income for 90% of Americans declined.

If we want to fight addiction, these numbers and trends are unsustainable. Reducing inequality isn’t just a boon to the middle class and poor—it could help every level of society by raising educational achievement, cutting health costs, crime, criminal justice expenditures and stress.

Obviously, this would require more taxes on the wealthy and on corporations and greater spending on schools, particularly early childhood care. It would require a commitment to genuine equality of opportunity—not of outcome, but of real options.

Alternatively, we can continue to self-medicate with food, cigarettes, alcohol, heroin, coke, meth, oxy, sex, the Internet—the list of consumer goods employed in a failing attempt to alleviate stress without getting to its root causes keeps growing—and go on fighting an endless, equally failing, war on drugs—and on ourselves.

 

Source: https://www.alternet.org/drugs/152996/_addiction_discriminates_what_that_means_in_today%27s_troubled_economy/?page=entire

Filed Under: America, Big Pharma, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Drugs, Health, Income Inequality, Law, Medical Industry, Money, New World Order, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Vaccines and Medicine, Wealthy Elite

The top 10 military ‘psy-ops’ corporations admit to using against Americans

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Environmental activist Sharon Wilson showed up to an oil industry event in Houston last week and caught a startling glimpse into how the fracking industry approaches residents in towns where they drill.

Wilson recorded industry insiders confirming they hire military psychological operation veterans, and use procedures pulled straight from the Army’s counterinsurgency manual.

The first half of the following slide titles are pulled exactly from the manuals section on ASPECTS OF COUNTERINSURGENCY. The second half is our interpretation of how that directive would be employed in American towns.

The text in the slides is pulled directly from the manual as well, though references to government etc. are put in brackets and changed to [corporation] for context. The corporations are referred to as the counterinsurgency or COIN.

Legitimacy is the Main Objective: Insert the government of choice

“The primary objective of any counterinsurgent is to foster the development of effective governance.

… All [corporations] rule through a combination of consent and coercion. [Corporations] described as “legitimate” rule primarily with the consent of the governed, while those described as “illegitimate” tend to rely mainly or entirely on coercion.

[Both] Their citizens obey the state for fear of the consequences of doing otherwise, rather than because they voluntarily accept its rule. A [corporation] that derives its powers from the governed tends to be accepted by its citizens as legitimate.

It still uses coercion for example, against criminals—but the bulk of the population voluntarily accepts its governance.”

Source: Army FM-34

Unity of Effort is Essential: Obtain full control of all government agencies

“Unity of effort must pervade every echelon.

… Ideally a counterinsurgent should have authority over all government agencies involved in operations. However, the best situation that military commanders can generally hope for is to be able to achieve unity of effort through communication and liaison with those responsible for the nonmilitary agencies.

There are many … organizations needing coordination. The [local government] must be key players in higher-level planning, while similar connections are needed throughout the chain of command.”

Source: Army FM-34

Understand the Environment: Become friends with the townsfolk

“The local population is a critical center of gravity of an insurgency.

Successful conduct of counter-insurgency operations depends on thoroughly understanding the society and culture within which they are being conducted.

[Corporate leaders] must understand the following about the population in the area of operations:

  • How key groups in the society are organized.
  • Relationships and tensions among them.
  • Ideologies and narratives that resonate with the groups.
  • Group interests and motivations.
  • Means by which groups communicate.
  • The society’s leadership system.”

Source: Army FM-34

Isolate Insurgents from Their Cause and Support: Initiate legal action to cut protesters financial support

It is easier to cut an insurgency off and let it die than to kill every insurgent.

“Attempting to kill every insurgent is normally impossible.

It can also be counterproductive, generating popular resentment, creating martyrs that motivate new recruits, and producing cycles of revenge. Dynamic insurgencies also replace losses quickly.

… legal action might be required to limit financial support. As the host government increases its own legitimacy, the people begin to more actively assist it, eventually marginalizing and stigmatizing insurgents to the point where their legitimacy is destroyed.

Victory is gained not when this isolation is achieved, but when it is permanently maintained by and with the active support of the populace.”

Source: Army FM-34

Prepare for a Long-Term Commitment: Settle in and get comfortable, they’ll be there ’til the hole runs dry

“By its nature, insurgency is protracted.

The conduct of counterinsurgency always demands considerable expenditures of time and resources.

Even if people prefer the [corporation] to the insurgents, they do not actively support that [corporation] unless they are convinced the [corporation's] forces have the means, ability, stamina, and will to win.

The insurgent’s primary battle is against the indigenous government, not the [corporation], but [public] support can be crucial to building public faith in that government’s viability.

Insurgents and local populations often believe that a few casualties or a few years will cause the [corporation] to abandon [their] … effort. Constant reaffirmations of commitment, backed by deeds, can overcome that perception and bolster faith in the steadfastness of [corporate] support.”

Source: Army FM-34

Manage Information and Expectations: Limit discontent and build support

“Information and expectations are related, and both are carefully managed by a skillful counterinsurgent.

To limit discontent and build support, a host [corporation] and any counterinsurgents assisting it create and maintain a realistic set of expectations among the populace.

Achieving steady progress toward a set of reasonable expectations can increase the population’s tolerance for the inevitable inconveniences entailed by ongoing counterinsurgency operations.

Where large [corporate] forces are present to help establish a regime, such progress can extend the period before an army of liberation becomes perceived as an army of occupation.”

Source: Army FM-34

Use Measured Force: Sometimes there’s no other choice but to get physical

“Any use of force generates a series of reactions.

There may be times when an overwhelming effort is necessary to intimidate an opponent or reassure the populace. But … An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if the collateral damage or the creation of blood feuds leads to the recruitment of fifty more.

So effective counterinsurgents understand the character of the local police and popular perceptions of both police and [the corporation].”

Source: Army FM-34

Learn and Adapt: Gather informants, create new laws and policies

“An effective counterinsurgent force is a learning organization.

Insurgents constantly shift between military and political phases and approaches. In addition, networked insurgents constantly exchange information about the [corporation's] vulnerabilities—including with other insurgents in distant theaters.

A skillful counterinsurgent is able to adapt at least as fast as the insurgents. Every unit needs to be able to make observations, draw lessons, apply them, and assess results. Headquarters must develop an effective system to circulate best practices throughout the [corporation] quickly.

[Corporate leaders] might also need to seek new laws or policies to authorize or resource necessary changes. Insurgents will shift their areas of operations looking for weak links, so widespread competence is required throughout the counterinsurgent force.”

Source: Army FM-34

Empower the Lowest Levels: Give every employee involved the ability to make decisions

“Local [employees] have the best grasp of their situations.

Under [corporate] command, they are given access to or control of the assets needed to produce actionable intelligence and manage information operations and civil-military operations. Effective COIN operations are decentralized. [Executives] owe it to their subordinates to push as many capabilities as possible down to their level. [Corporate leadership] encourages subordinates’ initiative within legal limits. It facilitates the learning process that must occur at every level.

[Empowering subordinates] is a major characteristic of a counterinsurgency force that can adapt and react as quickly as the insurgents.”

Source: Army FM-34

Support the Host Nation: Develop local leaders to maintain corporate policy

American forces committed to COIN are there to assist a host government.

“The long-term goal is to leave a host that is capable of standing on its own. In the end, the host nation has to win its own war. Achieving this requires the development of viable local leaders and institutions. [Corporations] can help, but host-nation elements must be able to accept responsibilities to achieve real victory.

While it may be easier for [corporations] to conduct operations themselves, it is better to work to strengthen local forces and then assist them.

Host governments have the final responsibility to solve their own problems.”

Source: Army FM-34

Yes, US corporations admit to using these tactics on Americans

 

Source: https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/09/list-10-military-psy-ops-corporations-use-against-americans/

Filed Under: America, Campaigning, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Environment, Fracking, Health, Lobbying, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Politics, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Science, War

Who Is Waging The War On Terra?

November 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is about as creepy as it gets.

Our planet is clearly under attack. Anyone even half awake can see the world today is careening towards disaster when there is no reason for it. Our resources are plentiful, and the vast majority of people on earth are loving, ethical and well meaning individuals.

However, those in places of authority and economic power appear to be maniacal psychopaths constantly scheming for new ways to use and abuse humanity and its beautiful home called Earth, or Terra.

You name it. Politically, economically, socially, environmentally. It appears we’ve been literally invaded by something foreign to our world and are being systematically abused, dismantled and destroyed.

Just Look at the Nuclear Nightmare No One Notices

Nuclear radiation is showing up everywhere! Never mind the constant death-dealing spray of radiation from Fukus-up-shima, humanity’s being dosed from every which way on this insane planet.

Leftover radiation from decades of nuclear bomb tests, Fukushima showers, cell phones, TSA checkpoints, medical offices, irradiated food, depleted uranium used in the war forum and elsewhere, leaking nuclear reactors…it’s pathetic. And that’s all we know about.

And that doesn’t include the chemtrails and other insane geoengineering “experiments”, managed mega oil disasters and the toxification of our water table via gas fracking and other means, never mind the mad wars being waged worldwide, etc.

Why Are They Doing It?

To reduce the population? Alter our genetic make up? Produce a morphed human race only capable of subservient tasks to please a master race immune or protected from these mutative influences on a deliberately morphed planet?

I know, pretty freaky. But all actually plausible.

Know Your Enemy.

David Icke’s recent interview on InfoWars was just terrific. Follow along when you get a moment as he outlines the potential for just such a scenario. It spurred me to finish this essay which I started over a year ago, but now is clearly the time for it.

How CAN it be!

Personally I like to think how can things like this be true, and not how they’re NOT possible. When it comes to strangeness we need not look beyond our current world.

We just need to look deeper at what’s right before our eyes.

The Terraforming and Depopulation Agenda

Fundamentally this is at the core of much of what we’re witnessing in today’s world. This transformation has been afoot for centuries, drugging and altering and culling the herd to keep it manageable while the would be Controllers attempt to create their perfect, illuminated utopian world…with us as their slaves.

And we’re witnessing a whole new beyond-Orwellian stage now in their war to change and control humanity.

If you’re following the trends and social memes that have surfaced over the past few years, an accelerating pattern unfolds. While our skies are sprayed with chemicals creating a consistent metallic haze worldwide, blocking the sun and poisoning our population, plants, animals, water and soil for future generations, our food chain is also being genetically modified with such reckless state-sponsored abandon it makes your head spin.

On top of that, while more and more chemical toxins are added to our food and water, our population is given vaccines and pharmaceuticals to further alter our natural make up and behavior. The media and science promote our ‘embracing” of new exponentially increasing technological changes and to eventually literally accept chips in our bodies for social and economic control. If you watch closely you’ll see an onslaught of propaganda encouraging us to become “transhuman”, a concept heavily promoted in the music industry and Hollywood.

Why Are They Doing This?

This battle for Earth and the seeming preparation by covert powers for these esoteric plans and purposes has been unfolding for millennia. Let’s look at a few aspects of this struggle for dominion by generations of power mongers a little deeper.

The Front Men Set the Stage

Following is perhaps the most ominous speech in recent history. If you can stomach it, George W. Bush lays down the boundless terms for an international assault on…an emotion. This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984 where the world is continually fighting far away wars with constantly shifting evil-doing fictitious enemies.

At just before 4 minutes in you’ll hear the ultimate false choice of our age, that sets the stage for the coming war to fully control humanity and usher in the New World Order they’re hoping this will lead to:

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Not a lot of wiggle room there. And since then that’s exactly what we’ve gotten-less freedoms, more restrictions imposed by the metastasized US State and its internationalist minions. And if you buck it or dare to criticize the State of ‘US’, from the invasive TSA to our Gestapo Homeland Security, you’re gonna see consequences become ‘grave’.

“W” Spells Out the War on “Terra”

One last thing before the script for world domination is dutifully read by Aleister Crowley’s retarded inbred grandson George Jr. Listen carefully to the very beginning of this speech, and tell me if W doesn’t seem to deliberately over Texan-ize the first use of the majorly important word terror to sound eerily like Terra, as in Earth.

Deliberate? Wouldn’t put it past them…one bit. As he goes on he pronounces the word just fine.

Oh how they love to flaunt their program to the “initiated brethren”. (Fine to just listen to the beginning, the rest is nauseating..)

War On Terra? Yup. Worldwide Dominion Is Their Goal

The Illuminati elite and their minions clearly seek to subdue all peoples of the earth in a great culmination of thousands of years of planning, manipulation and wicked social engineering. As we know, true history has been buried, twisted and rewritten by not just the victors, but the Controllers who play both sides.

However, there is a growing awakening sweeping our planet, and as a result essential facts have been coming to light for some time now. Their once secret (or occult) plans and methods are being exposed and brought to light for all to see.

As evidence to the above, I came across this in my research on the War on Terra by passionate researcher and Truth activist Ian Crane..perfect.

This is a DVD where….

“Ian R. Crane links the trauma of contrived oil and food shortages with the plan to introduce GM foods, not only to maximize the profitability of a mature oil & gas industry but also to provide a source of additional taxation for the primary purpose of funding an increasing number of illegal preemptive wars.

As the British Government signs legislation legalizing “scientific research” into far-reaching aspects of Genetic Engineering and Trans-Genetics, the author presents the ever increasing evidence to support his hypothesis that Humanity is under attack by those who believe that they are the rightful rulers of a global dominion.”

Psycho-Social Control - The Illuminati Hegelian Dialectic

First, it’s important to understand how they can subjugate whole nations and populations. This is obviously a huge subject as they use many methods including fear, intimidation, outright fabrications, phony suppositions and even witchcraft and literal mind control techniques in addition to their drugging and food altering technologies.

We watch helplessly as governments rise and fall, markets are manipulated to benefit the same greedy Illuminati robber barons, and society gets shredded with an incessant bombardment of mind-numbing hedonist media confusion.

Push Me, Pull Me: The constant stress of continual cognitive dissonance.

  • Violence, sex, and rebellion are condemned while being fiercely promoted and popularized at the same time.
  • In the name of so-called freedom, restraints from political correctness and phony “security” concerns shackle whole populations, which they accept gladly in the face of threats of phony external threats such as “terrorism”.
  • Supposedly representative politicians make sweeping promises and habitually proceed to do the opposite.
  • Religions clearly manipulate and easily sway huge masses of fabricatedly insecure people, subjected to an authoritarian hierarchy and told to love a god who will send them to hell if they get out of line.
  • Child abuse is condemned while it’s known to be rampant and unprosecuted amongst the elite and religious orders.
  • etc!…

Wecome to dystopia.

Anyone paying attention can see they’re hitting us from all sides. And that’s on purpose…it drives us to a desired place through the use of what’s called the Hegelian Dialectic. In simple practical terms David Icke explains the Hegelian Dialectic as Problem-Reaction-Solution.

Another Example: The environment is under deliberate attack, while they pretend to champion its preservation.

Just observe the deliberate poisoning of our atmosphere with chemtrails and pollutants and unnecessary fossil fuel use, while the Sierra Club condemns us for driving cars or exhaling CO2. Tell me that’s not madness. Then there’s the medicating of our drinking water through fluoride, chlorine, metals and other additives while we’re excoriated for challenging the government’s divine wisdom in doing so. Look at the restrictions imposed on natural medicines and supplements while they peddle dangerous drugs to the tune of multi-billions of dollars. And most horridly perhaps, the genetic modification of the very food we ingest for sustenance-while they outlaw home gardening, seeds and small farms!! Hard to consciously digest, so to speak….

The Truth of the Matter

The world doesn’t have to be the way it is-it’s the mess it’s in because that’s how the manipulators want it.

If Earth’s rightful inhabitants were left to natural and conscious laws of Universal design, we’d have plenty of food, free energy, rational and loving public discourse and happy interaction, and great intuitive conscious awareness where we would naturally align with the energy enhancing laws of the Universe…much like iron filings align and get charged by naturally occurring magnetic energy.

But worst of all for the Controllers or “powers that be”, we’d be empowered, and they’d be out of a job- and no longer able to literally suck our energy and life forces like the vampires that they are.

But Who’s Behind the Illuminati? What’s the Plan?

Researchers have been digging, tracing, connecting dots, speculating and formulating for a long time. Truth has intrinsic power and value, much more powerful than the opposing sorcery that tries to usurp everything for itself.

And the Truth is coming out!

That they could be an alien race of trans-dimensionals, or demon-possessed wicked Satanists out to do their master’s bidding is up for grabs. It could be both. But rather than give you a false choice in the matter, why don’t you figure it out?

Serious Questions Here

Is there a conspiracy and hidden agenda by powerful entities, or is it all just a coincidence and convergence of essentially accidental and random evolution of influences and events? Would powerful people actually meet together and plan or “conspire” for a self-serving elitist agenda toward their idea of utopia that may not be to the liking of the world’s inhabitants? Could they be influenced or controlled to a large degree by powerful alien, trans-dimensional or spiritual entities attempting to execute some esoteric plan?

Hey, who knows for sure. But ancient history from several cultures repeatedly tells the same story of a primordial invasion of earth by another species who interbred with early hominids to create what is now known as homo sapiens. How you gonna deal with that? With religious myths again to keep it at arms length through hierarchical rigmarole?

Time to get conscious. If we really believe we are all consciousness and essentially parts of an infinite Universe, maybe we better start listening to our hearts, challenging the party line and doing some serious research.

Because we are under attack.

Conclusion

The earth and humanity are clearly being transformed, and it’s not by accident and definitely not with our consent, except through our ignorance. If indeed we know the rulers of this world are up to a plan, which you’d be crazy not to believe, then our task is to see what that plan is and do our part to expose and stop it.

The earth is not slowly, but quickly being converted into something other than what it is naturally. The design apparently is that those who survive these manipulated changes will be the support team for these wicked trans-dimensional controllers who can survive just fine in the atmosphere they’re creating. In fact, it will probably support their life form better than the current natural earth does.

A very sci-fi sounding plot?

Actually it’s not that far from many religious teachings. The problem there is manipulated religions keep the masses transfixed on a very narrow, detached narrative, wholly dependent on a self-appointed hierarchy as they wait for the cavalry to save them. While there’s clearly truth mixed in with religious teachings, the paradigms are usually limiting and disempowering.

Meanwhile the Controllers literally get away with murder.

Any way you look at it, humanity is under attack, and they’re pulling out the stops. The more people who wake up to this heinous plot, however you see it, and take conscious action accordingly, the less power they have to execute it.

And as this vibrational change toward greater and greater conscious awareness dawns, like the sun rising after a dark night, the shadows of darkness will surely flee away.

Until then we need to light as many torches as we can!

 

Source: https://beforeitsnews.com/story/1364/801/Who_Is_Waging_The_War_On_Terra.html?currentSplittedPage=0

Filed Under: Agenda 21, Big Pharma, Biometric, Biotechnology, Campaigning, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, CYBER WARFARE, Earth, Food, Health, Income Inequality, Internet, Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Monsanto, New World Order, Police, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Psychology, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, The Hidden Empire

“Experts” Push For Lithium To Be Added To Our Drinking Water

November 14, 2011 By 4 Comments

Apparently there are not enough chemicals already added to our drinking water, as there is now a call by “experts” to further poison our water supplies by adding Lithium.

Their main reason is to decrease suicide and violent crime rates.

So it this how we wish to function as a society? Instead of dealing with our issues at hand, let’s drug ourselves so that we don’t have to deal with personal subjects that may be perceived as hard, negative or scary. This is not a time for putting our heads in the sand and pretending or even hoping that an issue will just resolve itself. Where is the personal growth in that? Don’t you feel elated when you resolve a personal issue that no longer hangs over your head or weights on your mind? It is more important than ever to clear ourselves of past issues that we have held onto and allow more room for the new energies coming to earth to take its place within our being.

What is Lithium usually prescribed for?

  • Bi polar disorder
  • Agitation not associated with bipolar disorder
  • Depression and to boost the effect of antidepressants
  • As a mood stabiliser
  • Sever Migraine Headaches

“Much like fluoride, lithium alters the brain’s normal production of serotonin and norepinephrine, which in turn artificially alters the way an individual thinks and how he or she feels about a given situation. Lithium is literally a mind-altering, antidepressant chemical substance that those promoting it openly admit modifies brain function. And yet they purport that forcibly inducing these chemical changes on the unwitting populations of the world is a good and acceptable idea.”

“Lithium has been heralded by some experts as the next potential flouride, after scientists found suicide rates were lower in areas where the drinking water had higher concentrations of the element, reports the Daily Mail”

“Time to supplement? Some scientists believe lithium could reduce suicide rates if traces were added to drinking water. The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, analysed a sample of 6,460 lithium measurements and then compared suicide rates across 99 districts.”

If anyone still believes that adding fluoride into our drinking water is a good idea.

What are some side effects of Lithium?

  • weakness, fever, feeling restless or confused, eye pain and vision problems;
  • restless muscle movements in your eyes, tongue, jaw, or neck;
  • pain, cold feeling, or discolorations in your fingers or toes;
  • feeling light-headed, fainting, slow heart rate;
  • hallucinations, seizure (blackout or convulsions);
  • fever with muscle stiffness, sweating, fast or uneven heartbeats; or
  • early signs of lithium toxicity, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, drowsiness, muscle weakness, tremor, lack of coordination, blurred vision, or ringing in your ears.

Less serious side effects may include:

  • mild tremor of the hands;
  • weakness, lack of coordination;
  • mild nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, stomach pain or upset;
  • thinning or drying of the hair; or
  • itching skin.

Adding Lithium appears to be yet another way that our population can be “dumbed down”.

Why would governments want to turn our drinking water into a chemical cocktail?

Perhaps this way society we will be more malleable and less people will be concerned about what is really going on in this world.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/experts-push-for-lithium-to-be-added-to.html

Filed Under: America, Big Pharma, Campaigning, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Environment, Family, Health, Law, Lobbying, Money, New World Order, Politics, Population, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Surveillance, Water

Torture - From Guantanamo to Bahrain

November 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“But the one person from Bahrain who fought for our freedom till the end was Nabeel Rajab from the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.”

This was part of an interview with Juma Mohammed Al Dossary, a former Guantanamo prisoner from Bahrain, after his release in 2007.

Mohammed Khalid, a pro-gov and Salafist MP, who campaigned for release of the detainees and compensating them, asked in 2005: “What about the Guantanamo prison, which is out of the sight of all rights and humanitarian organizations, where the matter could be worse than Abu Ghraib or Afghanistan?”. He said that many released prisoners “had talked about being submitted to human suffering and sexual abuse during interrogation”.

Some of the torture and abuse described by AlDossary through his lawyer included: religious abuse like cursing and insulting beliefs, being urinated on and spat on by GI’s, being burnt by cigarettes, severe beating while in extreme positions, and being sexually assaulted by female interrogators. The sexual assault was mainly to offend the men or lure them to talk.

Fast forwarding and on the other side of the Atlantic in another island hosting a US base. This is basically some of what’s happening and has been happening in Bahrain for the past 30 years. Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a lawyer and consultant with HRW, worked with Rajab to secure the release of Bahraini Guantanamo prisoners.

He describes how the same Bahraini MPs who gave him a standing ovation rejected HRW’s findings when it came to their citizens’ claims and evidence of torture in Bahraini jails.

MP Mohammed Khalid, who stood firmly with Guantanamo’s detainees on the basis of universality of human rights, was instrumental in igniting sectarian hatred against Shia when protests erupted, and is now in the front-line campaign supporting government’s measures of mass detentions and military courts calling the protesters traitors and Iranian agents and using the most offensive anti-Shia language.

Nabeel Rajab, on the other hand, is facing a fierce propaganda campaign in an attempt to discredit him and assassinate his character accusing him of being an Iranian agent.

From a 1997 special report on torture in Bahrain to the UN Human Rights Commission:

“The methods of torture reported include: falaqa (beatings on the soles of the feet); severe beatings, sometimes with hose-pipes; suspension of the limbs in contorted positions accompanied by blows to the body; enforced prolonged standing; sleep deprivation; preventing victims from relieving themselves; immersion in water to the point of near drowning; burnings with cigarettes; piercing the skin with a drill; sexual assault, including the insertion of objects into the penis or anus; threats of execution or of harm to family members; and placing detainees suffering from sickle cell anemia (said to be prevalent in the country) in air-conditioned rooms in the winter, which can lead to injury to internal organs.”

These exact methods are being used now. Since Feb 14, 2011, four people have died in Bahraini prisons as a result of torture. The total number is more than 20 since 1971. Those recently killed in prison were: Hassan Maki, Ali Saqer, Zakaria Al-Asheeri (Journalist), & Kareem Fakhrawi (Businessman). Among the hundreds of prisoners are politicians, MPs, human rights activists, doctors, nurses, students, lawyers, journalists, news photographers, and bloggers. Severe torture and sexual abuse have been widely reported.

In an April 14 Time’s article, Joe Stork, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, expressed his concern: ”I very much fear there will be more death because there is no transparency in all this,”. He adds: “We’re not seeing where they’re being held, or their names, and it’s these kinds of conditions that make for torture and brutality and death.”

Bush’s administration was in a “war against terrorism”, in which alleged foreign fighters were flown to Guantanamo; the Bahraini Government on the other hand is in a war against its unarmed population. The situation in Bahraini prisons might be way worse than Guantanamo as Obama announced an end to torture. However, as the information in the previous report suggests or rather proves, the US government, along with that of the UK and other countries, is morally and historically responsible for what happened and what’s happening in Bahraini prisons.

On May 16th, NY Times reporter Nick Kristof tweeted: “Our close ally, Bahrain, has a consistent record of using sexual abuse of male and female detainees as a form of torture.”

The next report will deal in more detail with Sexual Abuse in Bahraini prisons. Testimonies of tens of prisoners and detainees will be presented. This is what lies beneath the fake and promoted liberal posture of Bahrain.

Bahrain: The Systematic Use of Sexual Abuse

Bahrain’s security apparatus and secret police were established by the British, and were headed by Ian Henderson, “The Butcher of Bahrain” for 30 years. The rationale is that the people of Bahrain are basically the subjects of their (the British’s) subjects (the Khalifas). Add to that, the mentality of the ruling “conquering” family who believe Bahrain is their private property (owning 30% of its land) and its people are their slaves. With naturalization of foreigners to work in the security forces, things became messier for Bahrainis. The people were not only subjected to a colonial power, and a non-compromising ruling family; but also subjected to an uneducated and ruthless foreign mercenary force.

Since Shiites are generally not allowed into security forces, the animosity they are faced with has an ugly anti-Shia and sectarian nature. The police and security forces feel no shame destroying their mosques, wrecking their cars, stealing their possessions, verbally abusing them and their beliefs, humiliating them, and even sexually molesting and abusing their children, men, and women. The systematic nature of such behavior means that it’s not just an anti-Shia sentiment that drives them, but a well-designed policy dictated from the high chair of the decision maker down the ladder to the recently shipped Pakistani mercenary.

Sexual Abuse is used and has been used systematically in Bahrain. The same methods used in the 80s, were used in the 90s, and are being used now. The main aim are to extract confessions and to crush the prisoner’s will and dignity. Of course, with time, it becomes just a normal perverted behavior of a sadistic security force. In a conservative society like that of Bahrain, a rape victim can face a multitude of psychological and social problems and in many instances refrain from speaking out. In recent events, the government is accusing protesters with all kinds of bogus charges, and most of the time these charges are baseless. Following an old protocol, interrogators force detainees to sign confessions after severely torturing them and sexually assaulting them, or threatening them with rape.

Below cases were documented after the latest uprising that started with protests on Feb 14. They are testimonies of people brutalized or detained by security forces. The below accusations and the nature of the subject and the crackdown suggest that there are many untold stories.

Post February 14, 2011:

1) In a short documentary “Bahrain’s Dark Secret” about recent events by SBS Australia, Nabeel Rajab describes a midnight raid on his house followed by his arrest. They used anti-Shia language with him, and threatened to rape him.

2) In the same documentary, a woman named Fatima expressed her sorrow over her husband’s arrest by 50 masked security personnel. She finds trouble describing how 5 men hit her, used profane-insulting language against her, and sexually harassed her. One of the men put his penis in front of her face.

3) Abdulhadi AlKhawaja, a prominent human rights activist, who’s in jail and facing charges, was threatened with rape. His torturers wanted to videotape him confessing and appologizing to the King; when he refused, he was taken to another room, where they used ”foul language and threatened him with rape,” “they also threatened to rape his activist daughter.”

“At this point the men started undressing and showing their private parts after which they started touching (Khawaja) inappropriately,”

“When they tried to take off his pants, he threw himself down and started hitting his head on the ground continuously until he almost passed out. Seeing this they returned him to his prison cell.”

4) In a report in the Herald Sun titled ” Men raped, tortured in Bahrain”, interviews were conducted with 6 Bahraini men on how they were tortured. A 20 year-old named Mohammed, who claimed he had nothing to do with the protests, was detained, tortured and raped!

5) A female doctor was tortured by a female interrogator. The next day, a male interrogator threatened her with rape:

He told her: “You must have had Mutah with demonstrators at the (Pearl) roundabout,” “I will have Mutah with you,”

Another interrogator threatened her: “I will hang you from your breasts and rape you,”

She later signed the confession.

6) Ayat AlQurmuzi, a student who read a poem critical of the royal family was imprisoned. Her family said she was severely tortured and abused. They said her torturers spat in her mouth, and wiped her face on toilets. She was also threatened with rape, and exposure of degrading photos on the internet. And according to the Independent, pictures of Ayat began showing up on pornographic and dating websites.

7) 28 Shiite employees working in Bahrain International Circuit were detained, tortured and fired from their jobs. They were stripped out of their clothes.

According to one employee: “They said they’d rape us. They tried to touch you in various places to make you feel it’s going to happen.”

8)A woman doctor in custody was threatened with rape; a security officer told her: “We are 14 guys in this room, do you know what we can do to you? It’s the emergency law [martial law] and we are free to do what we want.”

9) AlJazeera English interviewed a 16-year old schoolgirl who was taken from school, detained and tortured for three days along with three other girls. She says the police officer took her head-scarf off by force after slapping her. Security officers swore and spat on them, called them “prostitutes”, and threatened to rape them.

10) A report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) on the storming of Salmaniya Hospital by Bahraini forces, accused them of “torture, beating, verbal abuse, humiliation, and threats of rape and killing.”:

One of the armed men with a Saudi accent started shouting anti-Shia insults: “Grave worshippers! Sons of whores! Sons of Muta!”

An officer with a Jodranian accent threatened to rape a patient, named Ali. Ali was previously shot in the face with bird shot.

11) A prisoner in his 60s named Jawad told his family that they were forced to kiss a picture of King Hamad, and another of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia every morning. If they kissed them, their torturers would spit in their mouths; if they didn’t, they would urinate in their mouths.

12) France 24’s reporter Nazeeha Saeed was detained overnight; she was severely tortured, humiliated and insulted by female interrogators accusing her of links with Hizbollah and Iran. One of the interrogators held a plastic bottle and put it against her mouth; “Drink, it’s urine,” she said. Nazeeha knocked the bottle; the interrogator then poured it on her face.

13) Nabeel Rajab said he met another rape victim on June 12th. She was kidnapped, blindfolded, taken to a deserted area, and raped by secret police. She reported this to a police station with no results. This is the second reported case according to Rajab.

Bahrain’s Security Forces: A History of Sexual Sadism

“There is one place in which one’s privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed – one’s body, a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. The torturer invades, defiles and desecrates this shrine. He does so publicly, deliberately, repeatedly and, often, sadistically and sexually, with undisguised pleasure. Hence the all-pervasive, long-lasting, and, frequently, irreversible effects and outcomes of torture.” Sam Vaknin, The Psychology of Torture

Unlike witnesses to horrors of war who usually share a collective memory with a community, victims of torture face a unique and special type of trauma. The physical and mental pain associated with torture and sexual abuse has been a subject of study in the past 50 years; intelligence agencies, good-willed psychiatrists, psychologists and philosophers have all showed special interest. No matter how much you read or watch about torture, or even if you work first-hand with torture victims, there’s no way you can truly comprehend the magnitude of their suffering.

Eliane Scarry, in her book “The Body in Pain”, says “Pain comes unsharably into our midst, at once that which cannot be denied and that which cannot be confirmed”. Psychologist Shirley Spitz, in a seminar about torture: “Torture is an obscenity in that it joins what is most private with what is most public. Torture entails all the isolation and extreme solitude of privacy with none of the usual security embodied therein”. She then tries to explain pain: “Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language… Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards.”

Typically, torture victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They can experience insomnia, irritability, restlessness, attention deficits, night terrors, flashbacks, cognitive impairment, reduced capacity to learn, memory disorders, sexual dysfunction, social withdrawal, inability to maintain long-term relationships, or even mere intimacy, phobias, ideas of reference and superstitions, delusions, hallucinations, psychotic microepisodes and emotional flatness.

The torture and sexual abuse inflicted on Bahrainis, like that inflicted on Argentineans, Filipinos and others, is not only meant to crush the political prisoner, but to break-down the entire community; spreading fear, anguish, and mistrust. Many torture victims become anti-social and suicidal; and as witnessed in Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere, torture victims and their family members are among the easiest to recruit in terrorist and militant organizations.

In 2009, Chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin in a conference asserted: “the abuse of detainees in our custody has served as a recruitment tool for terrorists”. Despite 200 years of oppression and more than 40 years of torture, we haven’t seen serious violence or major terrorist acts in Bahrain by dissidents.

Sexual abuse is a tool that has been used in Bahrain for a long time; most torturers aren’t Bahrainis, and therefore, feel no sympathy towards the tortured.

The below cases were documented prior to recent events, in the 80s, 90s, & 2000s; they illustrate how sexual abuse and assault are basics in Bahrain’s Security Forces’ manual:

1) In a British documentary about Ian Henderson, “Blind Eye to the Butcher”, a former Bahraini prisoner Hashem Redha who’s currently living in the UK, was interviewed. He was most probably imprisoned in the 80s and early 90s era; he was severely tortured and his nose was disfigured. He described how he was tortured with sticks and hoses, and that they sexually assaulted him by putting a pencil in his anus. He also described how Henderson, himself, was supervising those torture sessions, and in one instance, he personally put his finger in the prisoner’s anus, and asked if the prisoner had confessed yet.

2) Robert Fisk interviewed a prisoner who “claims that in the 1980s he was sexually abused in Henderson’s headquarters by another British officer who forced a bottle into his anus in an attempt to persuade him to reveal the names of Shia opponents of Sheikh Issa’s regime. The man identified the Briton by name”. Fisk said he “have confirmed that a British officer of the same name worked for Henderson at the time”.

3) In 1996, Robert Fisk interviewed Sayed Hisham al-Moussawi, an opposition figure in exile was imprisoned and tortured. He claimed “British officer – not Henderson or ”Brian” – was present during the ill-treatment. He named a Briton who worked with Henderson as responsible for his torture in 1983”. Moussawi: ”[He] wanted me to confess to political activities. They beat my wife up in front of me and then the Briton pushed a bottle up my anus.”

4) Said Al-Eskafi claimed his son Ali, who died under torture, was sexually abused.

5) In an interview, a Bahraini who spent many years in jail describes how he was tortured severely, and that once when he asked for water, a torturer told another to urinate in his mouth. They also threatened him that they would rape his mother and sister. He says many detainees were raped and conditions were way worse than AbuGhraib.

6) Another prisoner, Tawfiq Mahrous, also said one of his torturers urinated in his mouth. He describes how rape used to happen in front of prisoners. According to Mahrous, officer, Jama’a Nafe’e was specialized in rape and sexual assault, and these acts happened under his supervision. He also goes on to describe how they used to put their heads in toilets.

7) From a 2010 Human Rights Watch Report titled “Torture Redux, The Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain”:

“Isa Abdullah Isa told Human Rights Watch that an officer said to him, “If you don’t confess, I will bring your wife and let all the guards have her, I swear to God.” Isa heard the officer tell someone to “start the car” before saying to Isa that he was going to get Isa’s wife. Isa said he then falsely confessed to giving a gun to another individual.”

“Isa Abdullah Isa reported that while he was blindfolded in a room at Adliya, guards tied a plastic flexible handcuff around his penis and forced him to drink a bottle of water. Every 15 to 30 minutes, the guards forced him to drink more water and Isa began to feel a strong urge to urinate. He cried out, asking to use the toilet, but the guards refused. Isa said he considered urinating where he stood, but the flexicuff prevented him from doing so. Eventually, a guard removed the flexicuff, but Isa still was not permitted to use the bathroom. He urinated on himself.”

“Naji Ali Hassan Fateel reported that while being suspended with his hands above his head officers told him that he had to cooperate. Otherwise, one of the officers told Fateel, security forces would arrest Fateel’s wife and put her with a Pakistani guard who would rape her. The officer said that the Pakistani’s regular “job” was to rape boys.”

“On the day of his arrest, Yassin Ali Ahmad Mushaima was being questioned regarding pipe bombs. When Mushaima said he knew nothing about bombs, guards removed his clothing and threatened to rape him. They also said that they would rape his sister and mother. At CID headquarters in Adliya, an officer taunted Ahmad Jaffer Muhammad by saying that he was going to have sex with Muhammad. Muhammad, who was blindfolded at the time, told Human Rights Watch that the threat terrified him.”

“They ripped my pants and shirt, and tore off all my clothes,” al-Hamadi said. “They made me lie on my side on the floor. I was handcuffed and they held my legs down. An Egyptian was holding an electric device and he put it on my sexual parts. He put it on and off many times.”Al-Hamadi reported that the device was never placed on his body for more than a second or two.”

“When al-Shaikh, who was blindfolded, said that he knew nothing about a gun, the officers removed his clothes and pulled his legs apart. Then, al-Shaikh said, they inserted what he believes was a baton into his anus for a few seconds. One of the officers said, “If you want to pretend to be a real man, we’ll show you how to be a real man.”

8) Maitham AlSheikh, mentioned above, who was tried in 2009 for alleged possession of arms, accused security forces of sexually assaulting him, and said that the doctor report proved it. In an interview, he also described how they hanged him upside down naked and used sticks to sexually assault him repeatedly. His torturers also electrocuted his genitals. His torture sessions would last up to 7 hours.

9) Essa Al Sarh, in an interview to BCHR also said Bassam Al Me’eraj, an officer, threatened him that he’ll bring his wife and undress her in front of him, if he didn’t sign the confession; which he signed after the threat.

10) Hassan Abdulnabi was imprisoned along with his wife. His torturers also threatened him they would rape his wife if he didn’t confess.

11) From a BHCR report about torture and sexual abuse: “the most recent case was in Dec. 2006 when Mossa Abdali, a human rights activist was allegedly abducted and subjected to physical and sexual abuse. As a result of such atrocities, Mr Abdali was granted political asylum in the UK starting August 2007”

12) In 2008, Mohamed Alsingace, the head of the Committee to Combat High Prices and detainee, told his family that was beaten and sexually molested by two security officers, Moftah (Bahraini) and Parvis (Non-Bahraini) in front of Sergeant Adnan Bahar. Two other detainees, Mahmood Hassan Saleh and Mohemmed Makki Ahmed complained about sexual abuse.

13) In 2008 as well, a number of opposition activists were arrested:

Hamed Ebrahim Fardan : “..I was stripped naked in full. They kept playing with my “penis”, tied it with a rope and pulled it until I fainted. Because of that, I lost control of urination (involuntary urination) for more than a week.” “They threatened to bring my wife and assault her before my eyes.”

Hameed Adnan Omran, Jawad Hameed Adnan, Jawad Hameed Adnan, Sadiq Sayed Ibrahim Jumaa and Kumail Ahmad Ali Mahdi all claimed they were threatened with rape and sexual assault. Abdulla Juma Abdalla was threatened and sexually molested.

14) In 2010, BCHR blamed “Bahraini authorities for torturing Shia clerics and stripping several human rights defenders off their clothes in order to humiliate them. The human rights center also reported that some of the detainees, among them Shia clerics, were tortured, mutilated and sexually harassed and abused inside their cells.”

15) In 2010, 76 children have been detained, many were subjected to torture and sexual abuse. Their ages range from 10 to 17 year old. BCHR received a number of complaints on cases of child abductions by armed militias in civilian clothing. They are taken blindfolded to unknown centers where they are “tortured, severely beaten, and stripped naked” and “photographed” and “sexually harassed”. The incarceration could take from several hours to several days. Among the abducted, Ahmed Ibrahim (15 years), Ali Jaffer Aradi (15 years), Jasim Ahmed Habib (16 years), and Ali Ibrahim (17 years) who were all abducted on the 15th of last August from the village of Arad. “They were tortured and then dumped naked in the dawn of the next day at one of the country’s coasts”.

“The youngest child arrested is Jihad Aqeel AlSari (10 years), who was arrested on the eve of the Universal Children’s Day, November 19, 2010. This came after the family had received a call that Jihad was to go to the Police Ceter, which he refused to do fearing for his life. His family believes that the reason for his arrest is to put pressure on his father, the Shiite cleric Mr. Aqeel AlSari who is a detainee accused of participating in what is known as the “terrorism network”, especially after speaking before the Court on October 28th about how he was tortured in detention.”

16) Also, more on abductions by secret police: in August, 2010 armed militia in civilian clothing kidnapped Hakeem Al-Ashiri and Hussein Ali Dawood from Dair area and took them to an unknown location. “Their clothes were stripped off entirely, and were photographed nude and they were sexually harassed.”

On August 15th, Ali Hasan Al-Sitri, a law student and an activist, was abducted, tortured, and photographed naked. He was later told by an interrogator that this was only a message, and that his family members will be raped if he continued his activism. He was imprisoned for 2 days.

In another incident, Ahmed Ali Hussein Abdullah was abducted, tortured, stripped naked, rubbed with oil, sexually assaulted, and photographed. He was told that his photos will be published on the internet. He was questioned about his relation with the opposition, and he was threatened with raping his family members as well.

“Torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating isolation. The final products and outcome of torture are a scarred and often shattered victim and an empty display of the fiction of power” Shirley Spitz

 

 

Source: https://arabunity2011.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/torture-part-3-bahrain%E2%80%99s-security-forces-a-history-of-sexual-sadism/

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Family, Health, Human Rights, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Police, Politics, Poverty, Prison, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Surveillance, Torture, War, Wealthy Elite, Whistleblowers

Where’s your Nearest Nuke? The Map shows where America’s 5,000 Nuclear Warheads Are

November 14, 2011 By 1 Comment

There are currently 5,113 atomic warheads scattered across America and on U.S. submarines around ther world.

In 2009, President Obama spoke of his hopes to rid the world of nuclear weapons - but clearly progress has been painfully slow since then.

The Cold War may have ended a generation ago, but a fascinating new map put together by Mother Jones magazine, shows exactly where highly radioactive nuclear material is situated on mainland America.

The map was produced from data suppled by the Defense Department and nuclear watchdog groups.

It shows where the warheads are (in red on the map), where the civilian nuclear power plants can be found (in green) and the location of labs and nuclear weapons plants (in blue).

The green arrows show nuclear

According to The Lookout blog, watchdog groups believe the archaic system for making and storing weapons in the U.S. is both dangerous and expensive.

The country is telling the rest of the world that it is on the road to disarmament.

At the same time the U.S. is spending more on the nuclear weapons complex than we did during the Cold War.

The magazine reports that the 5,113 figure does not include ‘zombie’ nukes that are kept in reserve and more than 3,000 warheads awaiting dismantlement.

The map was produced completely with unclassified, public information. Even the military doesn’t hide where it keeps its missiles and bombers.

The sources for the map were the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Federation of American Scientists, Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, Nuclear Energy Institute

 

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060874/The-map-shows-Americas-5-000-nuclear-warheads-are.html#ixzz1dhKWdVfv

Filed Under: America, Animal Rights, Banks, Capitalism, Corporations, Economy, Human Rights, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Nuclear, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Science, War, Weaponry
« Older Posts