7th Feb 2003

I sit here, in the UK at this time, watching the BBC news on local TV. I sit here watching CNN news and other channels from the USA on cable TV.

The news is dominated by discussion and propaganda on the topic of a "war on Iraq" that President Bush seems so set on starting. There is news too on the documentary about Michael Jackson... someone that has risen "way up there" within the American Dream... wounded, scared, confused, neurotic, inspiring, lost in so many ways. A product of America yet now, in light of this documentary much of America is "horrified" by what has been revealed.

This war that is looming up on the world. Just what is it about?

How many people listen to the contrived and deeply planned statements given by Bush to the American public and do not realise that each word is carefully chosen... each word is part of an act... an act of deception... a lavish attempt in "manufacturing consent" from the American public to support a war on the latest "enemy" created by the powers that be.

Are we all so stupid? Are we so blinded by the bright lights of modern day living that we no longer recognise the lies and deception being laid upon all those listening to the words of Bush and his terrorist regime?

• What of the at times massive and often highly secret and unpublicised acts of "terrorism" supported, initiated and even carried out by the American Government over the last half century or so?
  
• What of the massive acts of destruction carried out and supported by the American government over the last century, all over the world and with a death toll running into the many millions?
  
• What of the "terrorism" and the lies and public deception that the American Government carried out in Panama when it took control of the Canal? Near genocide took place in Panama yet how many people reading this have no idea what I am talking about?
  
• What about East Timor and all the arms the USA supplied for what has been another massive case of genocide and a total abuse of human rights in that area?
  
• What about the US (CIA) organised bombing in Beirut in 1985, that killed and injured hundreds of innocent people in a failed attempt to kill one man suspected to be an "enemy" of the USA for one reason or another?
  
• What about the assassination of their own President when Kennedy was shot down by the CIA just a few decades ago, simply because he wanted to bring in policy that would lead to discarding an obsolete CIA and various other aspects of the American regime that many of those in power did not want to see the back end of?
  
• What about the massive amount of food that used to be dumped in the ocean each year by American corporations, just to keep the market prices at desired levels - whilst billions of people starve around the world?
  
• What about the fact that to date America is the only country in the world that has actually made large scale use of "weapons of mass destruction" when it dropped a couple of hydrogen bombs on two major cities in Japan a little over a half century ago? What about all the so called "innocent victims" that were destroyed through this massive act of global violence and what about the millions of people that have been affected by that destructive act and those that continue to suffer today from the radiation damage that this act brought to the Japanese public? Then there is the social damage that such a huge act of "terrorism" brought upon Japan... their culture and way of life was changed in ways unimaginable to the average American.
  
• What about the all the highly toxic chemicals that American corporations manufacture and import into less-developed countries after local US sales and use of such chemicals were banned once their toxicity was realised? Remember Gramoxone, a product based on paraquat - considered highly carcinogenic, a deadly poison and hence banned in the USA? Well, it is still being made (Syngenta are setting up a new plant in China to keep producing paraquat products) and is now imported into "third world nations" that do not have the policy restricting its use. Gramoxone is just one of many such chemicals that are banned locally yet America continues to profit from their sales into the less developed nations.
  
• What about the substantial financial support the American Government, George Bush's father, and the New York banking system provided to Adolph Hitler in the 30's and 40's whilst he carried out his program of genocide on the Jewish people?
  
• What about the many thousands of tonnes of radio active depleted uranium that the USA spread over huge areas of Iraq and other parts of the Middle East during the Gulf War which is now suspected to be the cause major health problems and cancer increase in the area? [ http://www.rimbaud.freeserve.co.uk/dhap99f.html & www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm & HERE for Google Search Results ]
  
• What about the huge number of "weapons of mass destruction" that the USA has not only within its own boarders but also position in countries all over the world? What steps are the USA taking to eliminate all their weapons of mass destruction? Do you know just how many nuclear war heads the USA has in its possession? We are not talking about a few hundred... rather the figure reaches into the many thousands - enough to completely destroy this Planet many hundreds of times over.
  
• What about the conservative UN estimate that an additional 2.5 million people in Afghanistan are in need of food this winter as a result of the recent UK-US attacks on this already impoverished nation? These attacks have brought the figure up from an estimated 5 million to an estimated 7.5 million people - a 50% increase. How many people died when the Twin Towers came down? Any intelligent person will see that the numbers are relatively insignificant compared to the additional millions now without food as a result of the resent onslaught from the USA and England on the Afghanistan people. Yet how much "News" has the media in the USA made of this appalling situation?
  
• What about the fact that America is a nation that was built through the use of slavery and continues to feed its national hunger for endless consumption through more slavery than ever before only now the the slavery has been moved offshore - through the use and abuse of cheap and often inhumane labour in under developed countries such as Indonesia, China, Honduras, Portugal, India, Mexico, and many others? (of course much of the "western world" is now guilty of this use of off-shore slavery)
  
• What about the the massive US led slaughtering the went on in Indonesia resulting in the murder of over 1 million innocent people just so that the US could "globalise" the country and use it as a source of off-shore slave labour whilst also undermining a democratic political system that was working and serving the people? (http://pilger.carlton.com/articles/69005)

This list is small and by no means conclusive. It is just a few of the things I can think of off the top of my head as I sit here now and write this page. The sad thing, as I write this, is that I am aware that the majority of people will not know the slightest thing about ANY of the questions I have just raised. You see this is not the sort of material you find in the American media... a media that is highly controlled and contrived in order to move public opinion in the direction the American government thinks fit.

The American public live under the illusion that they live in a free nation with the greatest freedom of any people in the world. Sadly, America is one of the most controlled nations in the world... yet the controls that are in place are hidden, kept secret and are not topics of public "interest". Yes, there is a great deal of freedom within many aspects of the American society on one level yet that freedom is afforded at the cost of deep seated control and deception at another level. It is time that the American public woke up from the so called American Dream and started to look around at the massive destruction the planet is undergoing in order to provide the American public with endless consumption of this world's precious resources.

A simple question that might be far easier for the average American to fathom than the questions I have put forth above is: Ask yourself the next time you are at Walmarts... "Just how is it that everything here is so cheap and at whose expense am I afforded an endless array of extremely cheap consumable items spread out throughout this so called Superstore?"

When I saw the twin towers demolished back in September over a year ago now I was sorry for the many people that had to die in that outrageous event. Yet I was equally aware that there were no "innocent" victims in all this. We all have to ask ourselves, "Just what is it I am supporting through the choices that I consciously and unconsciously make each day? Just what effect am I having on the world at large through the choices I make each day?"

We all have the capacity to ask this question and to seek out the answers... with that capacity comes a deep responsibility. With that responsibility comes the fact that we are each playing an active role in what unfolds around us through our actions and inactions. With that active role there are no longer any innocent victims - in fact there are no victims at all. Please understand that I do not say this to be harsh or callous, nor do I support actions such as the killing of thousands of people through acts of "terrorism" in order to make a point. Yet equally, I do not support America with its national and foreign policies and activities that have (and continue to) directly and indirectly kill and harm millions of people as a result of its all to often arrogant disposition toward life and this planet.

Part of the American Dream seems to include the notion that America is the "world leader", above and beyond all the other nations and people of this world. I have been raised in New Zealand and in recent years I have lived in Canada, various parts of Europe and Scandinavia, an island in the Caribbean, and I have also lived in the USA for about 18 months. One of my experiences of the American people (as a generalisation) was that most of them live in a very small world. It is a world that revolves around America. It is a world that is very cut off from anything outside of America. The little connection that there is with the rest of the world is generally limited to a small amount of rather contrived, distorted and at times "manufactured" media news and coverage that is again very careful not to disturb the image that America has of itself.

When I lived in America for 12 months (staying in one place in Colorado) I noticed after about 4 or more months that I was starting to feel very "cut-off" and out of touch with the world at large. It was a strange yet increasing distinct feeling that I was not used to and eventually could not ignore. My whole life I have not been one to watch the news or even the TV all that much. I have never been into reading Newspapers and news media. News media has always left me with the feeling that I am being fed a distorted and at times deceptive view on life and world events. It has felt like I sitting with someone that is delusional and blatantly lying to me as we talk. Despite this lack of input from the News media I have also felt far more in touch with the world and what is happening in the world at a macro and micro scale than most of the news fed general public around me. This feeling of being in touch with the Earth and global events started to wane away the longer I spent time in the USA. I eventually found myself downloading the BBC 6 o'clock news off the internet each day a few times a week for a month or so. Even getting this small amount of News "input" from outside the USA started to eliviate the "cut-off" feeling that was mounting inside me, despite that fact that ordinarily I only got that "lied to" feeling from the News media much of the time.

When living in San Diego recently I became very aware of the fact that when talking to the people I was mixing with (who were all quite "open minded" and aware people) I felt like I was talking with people that were sitting in very well defined bubbles. With further insight and investigation I realised this was a bubble that was again very cut off from the World and cut off from what is REALLY going on in the world on a daily basis. A bubble that was a very carefully created construct that they had, I guess, picked up from the culture in which they lived.

Just in the last day I have met up with an old friend in England. He works in the area of Internet security and the implementation of high end network security for large companies and governments etc. The nature of his work means that he interacts with some very interesting people - people that have experience and history in the fields of internet crime, computer based terrorism, national security, special services, CIA, the mafia, NASA, NSA, special ops, and a host of other aspect of modern society that are for most people just the stuff that movies are made of. Almost all of the information pertaining to their work within special government services and operatives is classified and they are not at liberty to say anything about what they know, about what they have seen, been taught and experienced. Some do talk though, without breaking their code of silence. They can refer to things that are already "out-there" in public knowledge - things that are, in the public mind, considered to be mere "myth" and fictional info, conspiracy info etc. If the knowledge is already out there on the basis that it is somehow just fiction then they can confirm that which is not fiction. I know that if the general public knew even a small portion of what these people knew then "public order" would completely fall apart in much of the western world. The bubble that much of America lives in would be rapidly destroyed. Let me just say that there is so much going on in this world that most people have absolutely no idea about.