People without a Country, an Opportunity, or Food

Can you believe travesties of sickening proportions are happening now, are happening just as the patterns of history provide for, are happening just as prophesied and expected and yet they are not at all inevitable? Now, in our time, in our life, when we can do something about it and change it, or lose another part of our life stories to observation and complicity.

The Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are people without a country, without enough land, without internationally recognized leadership or legal power.
They have few opportunities to make money, travel, to even get out of their fenced-in territories and into the country of Israel.
At least in the Gaza Strip, they can access the sea.
But today I woke to several real occurring, recurring nightmares of the Palestinians, happening in that world across the ocean and a sea from me, accessible only by pictures and letters and reports.

Now the people living in the Gaza Strip are running out of food, besides having been cut off from trade and all means of production.

Walled in, Bombed, Surrounded. I hardly imagined that things could get worse-- especially during and right after the holidays.

I hardly imagined that an American I care about would be in the center of this conflict's shifting storm, waking me up and making me care. (God, why do songs and celebrities pull me into the world's heartaches more than written pleas, documentaries, sermons or petitions?)

Ships and caravans and planes have headed to Gaza for many months with humanitarian relief. And today, the Dignity, a ship bearing humanitarians and journalists from many countries, was stopped on its relief mission to Gaza. Now I hear from the Anarchist Black Cross Federation, the US Campaign to End the Occupation of Palestine, and a US Social Forum group that the Dignity was surrounded by Israeli warships at 5 am (US Time) today and rammed into, damaged and losing fuel. The Dignity carries journalists from Al Jazeera, CNN, doctors, and one humanitarian from the US, Cynthia McKinney, who had recently run for President as a Green. Israel wants no dignity or food to arrive at the Gaza Strip for the starving, poor, and displaced, but rather wants the Dignity to return to its launching point, Cyprus, though it doesn't have enough fuel to do so.

How did I get word of this so soon? I don't even know how word got around, but besides prayer, it is our main starting point. The main way that these battles can engage the world.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.aid.boat/index.html

Lakotah need Emergency Aid

As of today, the Republic of Lakotah is in the twelfth day of a Snow Emergency. The Chief Facilitator, Russel Means, is trying to alert the world, seeking better aid than the Red Cross provided. Many hundreds of American Indians still snowbound and without electrical power or water on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Sofia Romero, age 98, snowed in, no power, no water, food situation unknown. Emme Zimiga, age 96, snowed in, no power, no water, food situation unknown. Amanda Milk, age 80's, no legs, dialysis patient, snowed in, presumed dead. Hisle SD - 38 households (average of 17 persons per household on Reservation) still snowed in with out power or water. Lost Dog Community - 5 families snowed in, no power, no water, food situation unknown. Lacreek Electric Association reports that over 1,000 power distribution poles broken by the storm have been replaced, but dozens more are still down, while repair efforts have been diverted to the some of the main distribution lines still partially inoperative. Red Cross Effort Vehemently Incompetent - As documented by Marion White Mouse (605-462-6242), the American Red Cross sent a contingency of one volunteer, Monica Turkleson who departed the Reservation prematurely on Saturday, November 15th. Ms. Turkleson's "aide" consisted of nothing and her behavior was reported as impatient, rude and racist. Russell Means suggests that this organization change its name to the "White Cross."

For More Information About the Situation of the People on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservaton, CLICK HERE

Private Army Designated by Bush

"Private Army Designated by Bush"

Published in the Augsburg College Echo, 10/31/08.

"NORTHCOMM and Urban Warfare"

Published in Women Against Military Madness newsletter, December '08

(http://www.worldwidewamm.org/newsletters/2008/12080109/northcomm.html)

If you’ve heard rumors about martial law in America, you may wonder how it would ever be possible, and what the supra-military force, NORTHCOMM, has to do with it.

Northern Command is a special military and intelligence joint task force that helps local, state, and tribal authorities in times of crisis on the North American continent. When the I-35 W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis on August 1, 2007, the US Navy was there to help, under a Region Defense Coordinating Officer of the US Northern Command. According to Northern Command’s timeline on its website, www.northcom.mil, the US division of NorthComm also helped states to mitigate flood damage in the Midwest last June. Here is why its new troops may be coming to a city near you in the near future, regardless of natural or manmade disasters in your area.

Deployment of NORTHCOMM

When a leader secures an army and security force dedicated to him and not to any Constitution, he lifts his own office above its prescribed role in the Constitution. That is what happened to the office of the President on October 1, as it has happened several times since George W. Bush took office.

On that day, the homeland tours of a 3,000-4,000 person army, the 1^st Brigade Combat Team, began. NORTHCOMM leads this Brigade of the 3^rd Infantry Division and it answers only to the President and the Secretary of Defense, not Congress, because the President established it on Oct. 1^st 2002.

Congress has been funding it through bills like the Defense Authorization Act of 2007, but because of the secrecy of NORTHCOMM, Congress has even less oversight of it than it does over the five military branches.

The troops currently touring under NorthComm are the first to have ever been given a dedicated assignment to it. The 1^st BCT had just returned from fighting in Iraq, and will tour America for 12 months, after which a different division will be assigned to this permanent mission, according to the Army Times. The Army Times’ article of September 30, “Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1,” says that the 1^st BCT will

“learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”

A CBRNE attack is any chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive situations.

The article by Gina Cavallero can yet be found at http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

Urban Warfare

Controlling unrest could mean anything from fencing and guarding private property to demanding citizens' guns, house by house, as the National Guard and NorthComm did in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina's devastation. ARMYNORTH, under NORTHCOMM, is not the first military division to have been trained in urban warfare in the U.S. However, the 1^st BCT is also trained to use a special package of non-lethal weapons that will be stored at their tour sites: America’s cities. The above article was corrected so that readers understand the new non-lethal weapons packages can only be used in a war zone. But President Bush and his lawyers made the whole world a war zone with his unofficial declaration of the war on terror.

Appeasement

It didn’t take long for the active BCT to be used as a threat against the American people, as Representative Brad Sherman confessed on the House floor on October 2. During debate on H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, he explained before his colleagues and C-SPAN that

“Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill, on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple thousand the second day, and a few Members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted ‘no.’”

On October 3 the bill, nicknamed the corporate bail-out bill, was passed 263 to 171.

Emergencies

What does that threat of force have to do with the BCT’s mission to help in “potentially horrific scenarios?” Look at National Security Directive 51, which applies to natural and manmade emergencies. President Bush established his claim on emergency rule with National Security Directive 51 in May 2007. At this time America is not in a state of emergency. However, NSD 51 gives the President the power to determine what and where American emergencies are.

With only his own authority, he signed the executive directive so that, in a catastrophic emergency, “The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.” It’s hard to determine what that means when only Annex A of that Directive is available at the President’s website, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

Peter Dale Scott looked into this in his article “The Showdown" on CounterPunch, March 31, 2008. He wrote, concerning members of the House Homeland Security Committee’s request to read the directive,

NSPD 51 contains "classified Continuity Annexes" which shall "be protected from unauthorized disclosure." Congressman DeFazio twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter cosigned by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney. It was these requests that the White House denied.

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For more, please research:

The US government’s Continuity of Operations plan, from 1946 to the present, and Donald Rumsfeld’s changes to it.

http://www.wikileaks.org/leak/us-army-reg-500-3-continuity-2001.pdf

The 2007 House Report 110-477, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008, Section 1821.