JUNE 14, 2011, FIGHT THE BANKS

Lee Camp is a man with a plan!

http://leecamp.net/

HAVE BP AND THE US PSYCHOPATHIC GOVERNMENT PERPETRATED YET ANOTHER FRAUD AGAINST THE PEOPLE?

Christiane Tourte

Dr Tom Termotto
American Chronicle
19 Aug 2010

Dr. Tom Termotto, BCIM, National Coordinator for the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference ( International Citizens´ Initiative) in Tallahassee, Florida, has written an extremely interesting and important Press release in regard to BP and the US government and their role in "perpetrating yet another fraud against we the people?", and furthermore brings to our attention the diagrams of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon (Macondo Prospect) proposed by B.K. Lim and what they represent concerning the Well in question and BP narrative. I strongly recommend that everyone reads it quite diligently:

Press Release 2010

BK Lim has done it again. He presents here an alarming analysis of the events prior to and after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon on top of the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico. We very much appreciate this great revelatory work by BK Lim.

As always, we leave it to our readership to continue to ferret out the real story behind this Crime and Cover up of the Millennium. Our challenge, clearly, is that BP and the US Federal Government have locked down the crime scene known as the Gulf of Mexico with extraordinary police powers.

How so?

The US appointed BP, a foreign, multi-national corporation, as the lead entity in a unified command structure which was created as the official and legal response to the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Therefore, BP was empowered by our government to effectively enforce martial law in US territorial waters in the wake of BP´s perpetration (with US Federal Government aid and assistance) of an unprecedented series of crimes. Can it get any more bizarre and kafkaesque than this? We certainly hope not.

What has really gone on here?!

In fact, the US Federal Government, a full-blown accomplice, has enabled BP ~ the perpetrator of a Crime against Humanity, a Crime against the Planet, a Crime against a Nation (USA), a Crime against a Major Body of Water ~ to completely control its own crime scene.

What we have, therefore, are psychopaths, who are in control of the US Government, giving powers to criminally insane sociopaths who are in control of the corporate entity known as BP.

Such powers both permit and encourage the criminals to tell (and in many cases order) the innumerable victims of these many crimes, how to clean up the criminal´s own crime scene.

Are these statements overly harsh or unwarranted in any way?

You be the judge after viewing the set of diagrams which depict a very likely scenario of what may have transpired before and after of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. Of course, please bear in mind what the Gulf of Mexico has already sustained throughout this saga of environmental terrorism, ecological genocide and disaster capitalism. Add to this mix a PR Campaign by BP that represents the COREXIT dispersant as clean & green, much of the 8.7 million barrels of hydrocarbon effluent as having disappeared, and methane gas concentrations up to 1,000,000 times normal as non-existent.

Comment: Click here to view the diagrams

On the other side of this counterfeit coin we have a National Government which essentially set up this crime scene inasmuch as they are the biggest player in the Oil & Gas game. Gotta have it to fuel perpetual war, especially when they´re being waged halfway around the world. It is the Military Industrial Complex that really eats up the stuff ` like up to 50% of the hydrocarbons coming from the Gulf of Mexico. How can you possibly shut down that spicket without first terminating a foreign policy that thrives on war first, diplomacy second?

Should there be a genuine shift to seeking political solutions to international disagreements by our government, there will follow a dramatic and immediate decrease in oil and gas requirements for the nation. It´s that simple.

In the meantime, we must contend with a federal bureaucracy that is hardwired to make decisions that seek to please the corporate lobbyist. Whether these decisions come from the Departments of Interior, Energy, Justice, Homeland Security or the EPA, these agencies know they have to deal with corporate influence regardless of who´s in power.

Taking the path of least resistance is always operative in the DC culture, and therefore the interests of We The People are always, always, subordinated to those who contribute to the campaigns of the elective office-holders. Let´s count the many and diverse ways that politicians and regulators at both federal and state levels just about guaranteed such an oil and gas catastrophe would occur. BP was given a free pass by all, especially because they are a foreign entity without conscience or loyalty to anything American. Who else would be given the task to DRILL BABY DRILL in the most vulnerable, risky and dangerous places on planet Earth?

Fools and Frauds

Let´s take this line of inquiry one step further. We now have a President who is taking a vacation on a Florida beach that has been airbrushed clean and nice to present the return to normalcy to the rest of the vacationing public. And a Governor who made commercials about himself and the first lady taking dips in the Gulf because the waters were now fit and safe for children, the air was free of VOC´s and the sand has nary a drop of oil on it (Just because you can´t see it doesn't mean it´s not there).

Is there any legitimate scientific basis for such purposeful and deliberate statements (both verbal and actions) from our political leaders. Let´s consider the following points of information, and then decide.

I. No testing of the water for COREXIT chemical constituents, petrochemical derivatives, methane gas concentrations, toxic drilling residues etc. has been conducted by BP or US Gov´t as far as we know.

II. Proliferation of various algae blooms and unfriendly anaerobic microbials due to oxygen depletion caused by the hydrocarbon effluent, especially during the summer months (warmer water inherently holds less oxygen) is not even on anyone´s radar screen.

III. Sand testing, a hugely needed procedure along the entire Gulf Coast, has not even been mentioned in the MSM, except for those isolated cases where gobs of oil and mousse showed up on the beach. Prince William Sound, Alaska showed us that the petroleum will be drawn down into the layers of beach just below the top surface due to sun, heat and gravity. There, it will sit in much greater concentration than oil in an aquatic environment, only to be seen and felt when setting the foundation for a sand castle or digging your feet in the nice, warm sand.

IV. The Gulf Coast Fisheries have somehow been exempted from any kind of testing which might prove the seafood´s fitness for human consumption. The marketing campaign to jump start this industry has gone into full tilt and really presents much cognitive dissonance for the seafood-eating public.

What you can´t see or taste or smell, unfortunately, is usually the most dangerous form of any contaminant or toxin. We´re afraid that OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND will win the day where it concerns people´s palates. And you can be sure that this is just what they´re (BP & US Gov´t) betting on!

V. The ENERGETICS of the entire Gulf have profoundly changed. We know that we´ll lose a lot of you on this one but it must be said. Just as the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus is now a dead petrochemical cesspool, and therefore possesses a completely different bioenergetic field, so has the Gulf of Mexico.

Likewise, its normal bio-electrical grid has been radically transformed due to the addition of so much chemical contamination, much of it on a greatly dispersed and smaller unit basis. The greater the total mass and volume (and therefore density) of non-aqueous constituents in water, the more conductivity it will possess.

How this translates, particularly for the marine life, is not yet known. However, we can say that these two gentlemen were greatly affected during the recent Chinese Oil Spill.

Houston, we still have a problem!

The problem will not go away until BP completely relinquishes its role in the Gulf, and it is brought to justice by all the appropriate jurisdictions that has been violated by this Oil & Gas Industry "supermajor".

Corporate behemoths of this size and power ought to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and held up as the poster child of global serial criminals so that others are kept in check.

Otherwise, the corporate impulse will be to get away with as much as can be gotten away with, especially when the bottom line can be unconscionably enriched.

The real issue here is the shield of LIMITED LIABILITY.
This clause has conferred upon corporate entities everywhere the power to wreak havoc wherever they wish with virtual impunity. This Limited Liability shield is effectively granted by the issuing state through the articles of incorporation. It permits a corporation to hide behind this legal, but highly dubious clause, after crimes are committed against a nation, a person, another company, an indigenous tribe, a city, a family, a state or, in this case, an entire region of the USA.

Just What Legal Remedies and Compensatory/Punitive Damages Do We Seek?

1. An immediate and permanent termination of all BP oil and gas exploration, drilling and extraction within these United States of America (to include all US territories).

2. An immediate seizure of all BP corporate assets worldwide to be set aside in a humanitarian trust fund to ensure the payment of all present and future legal claims, as well as court-awarded judgments.

3. An immediate arrest and prosecution of all BP officers and directors who participated in these crimes through acts of commission or omission.

4. An immediate arrest and prosecution of all US Federal Government employees from those departments/agencies that were tasked with the direct oversight regimes concerning BP´s US Operations.

5. A permanent moratorium on all oil and gas drilling within US territorial waters, as well as an authentic and comprehensive review of all current oil and gas activities within the same jurisdiction.

6. A serious audit and remediation of all abandoned wells within US territorial waters. A presidentially-appointed and congressionally-mandated US Commission to study the risks associated with the current 4000 oil and gas platforms currently in operation in the Hurricane Alley region of the Northern Gulf Coast of Mexico.

The Final End Of The Hydrocarbon Fuel Paradigm

Many of us have seen the movie, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. We are now witnessing what can occur when the craziest among the crazies are running the asylum.

Many have also seen the movie Avatar and now understand that Planet Earth has become Pandora. That most of us who live here are the Na´vi. And that oil and gas are the unobtanium that is being stolen from Mother Earth, which is putting Her at great risk.

Very few truly understand that, where it concerns the continuation of the HYDROCARBON FUEL PARADIGM, the fate of humankind now lies precariously in the balance. That´s correct ~ the future of the planet is in jeopardy where it concerns GAIA´s ability to maintain a necessary biosphere that is fit for human life to live and prosper.

We already know that the quality of life all over this once pristine and beautiful orb has deteriorated beyond thresholds which will ensure the premature death for millions of inhabitants. As it will also promote an exponential proliferation of disease and illness, epidemics and syndromes, debility and ailments of every kind throughout the global population.

While there is no disputing that we have chosen this path collectively, it does not mean we cannot change our course. In fact, WE MUST CHANGE OUR COURSE. And WE MUST DO IT SOON. By thoughtfully transitioning away from this inherently destructive energy platform, and over to some of the truly clean and green energy sources and technologies which have been suppressed for decades.

Do we get it yet? We certainly hope and pray that we have made ourselves perfectly clear in this regard. And we invite everyone to join this "cause of the millennium" ~ > Let´s SAVE THE PLANET by HEALING MOTHER EARTH.

All the diagrammatic illustration of BP´s Deepwater Horizon Blow out is the work of BK Lim and can be found here:

Dr. Tom Termotto, BCIM

National Coordinator

Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference (International Citizens´ Initiative)

Tallahassee, FL
EMail
Website

WHY JUNE 5 MATTERS/VIDEO: FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE

By Joe Catron,

source

May 30, 2011

I gasped as the first bullet struck a young man standing a few paces ahead of me. Watching him crumple to the ground, I struggled for breath and fought my natural urge to run. ‘Allahu Akbar!’, the crowd roared around me. ‘Yalla, Shebab!’ A half-dozen other men ~ none of whom could have been older than twenty, and most of whom looked much younger ~ rushed forward, retrieving their fallen compatriot and carrying him quickly to a waiting ambulance. A thin trail of blood marked their path, ending in a small, dark puddle where the first of the day’s many gunshot victims had fallen.

Thousands of refugees and other Palestinians had gathered at the Erez Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. An imposing military structure of massive concrete barriers and machine gunners’ towers, the border wall separates Gaza Strip residents from the 78% of Palestine seized by the State of Israel in 1948. For the two-thirds of residents who are refugees, it also prevents their return to the homes from which they and their families were forcibly expelled that year. Palestinians throughout the world remember this Nakba, or catastrophe, every May 15 with gatherings, demonstrations, and resolutions to someday return.

But this year would be different. Inspired by the popular uprisings against dictatorships across the Arab region, Palestinians were resolved to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of 711,000 people from their country by making history, rather than remembering it.

On the morning of May 15, Nakba Day, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered around the borders of Israel and its occupied territories, determined to march to the homes and homeland denied to them for generations. In Beit Hanoun, they walked from buses forced to stop kilometers from the crossing by the sheer numbers of the crowd. Many remained at checkpoints preceding the crossing. Others pressed forward, their eyes fixed on the distant gate.

The Israeli response came quickly. Bullet after bullet penetrated the crowd of unarmed demonstrators, each one finding its target. Artillery shells pounded the sandy dunes around us, and after several hours, tear gas canisters hissed through the air. Over a hundred people were hospitalized with serious injuries, while elsewhere on the border, a 17-year old boy was killed by artillery fire. The rest of us escaped with tear gas inhalation, cuts from exploding concrete and shrapnel, and bloodstains from the limbs, torsos, and faces shattering around us.

Yet the demonstrators kept coming. After every retreat from gas, gunfire, or the thunderous boom of artillery, there was another surge. Only when the sheer brutality of the Israeli forces had sufficiently depleted the number of those capable of pressing forward did the strength of the crowd begin to wane.

And somehow, the overall mood remained one of measured, but tangible joy. The victory sign was everywhere, and smiles were common not only on the runners ferrying injured marchers to medical attention, but also on the young men and women they carried. Everyone seemed to intuitively sense that they were doing something historic, closing one chapter in the long, painful struggle for Palestinian freedom and opening another one that offered more hope for a happy ending.

Elsewhere, the state violence inflicted upon peaceful marchers was even worse. At the border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, Israeli gunfire killed four of them, while in Lebanon, ten suffered the same fate. Hundreds, if not thousands, were seriously injured.

But like the returnees in Beit Hanoun, those from Lebanon and Syria refused to be dissuaded by military repression. Dozens of the latter poured through Israeli barriers, spending hours in the welcoming villages of the occupied Golan Heights before leaving under the protection of their Syrian hosts. One, Hassan Hijazi, made it all the way to the Jaffa home from which his family was exiled in 1948. Before surrendering to Israeli police, the 28-year old told journalists, “I wasn’t afraid and I’m not afraid. On the bus to Jaffa, I sat next to Israeli soldiers. I realized that they were more afraid than I was.”

Hijazi’s seven million fellow Palestinian refugees aren’t afraid either. On Sunday, June 5, they will return to the borders created to exclude them, and perhaps beyond. Like the 63rd Nakba Day, this 44th anniversary of the Naksa, or setback ~ Israel’s 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and subsequent expulsion of 300,000 additional refugees ~ promises a commemoration like none before it.

June 5 will not determine the outcome of the Palestinian movement for return. That outcome was already determined by the decades of grassroots organizing and popular struggle that culminated in the historic mobilization of May 15. Its finality can be glimpsed in grievances by Western media like Reuters that “[t]he Palestinians who forced their way across Israel’s border on Sunday turned back the clock on the Middle East conflict, putting centre stage the refugee question that many believed would be negotiated away,” and confirmed by the sweaty, stammered insistence of Zionists like Benjamin Netanyahu that “it’s not going to happen. Everybody knows it’s not going to happen.”

Those suddenly forced to defend not only the brutal excesses of their system, but the very racism of ethnic cleansing, exclusion, and apartheid upon which its existence relies, find themselves in a situation both uncomfortable and unprecedented. They have no reason to expect it to become easier in the coming months, as further waves of returning refugees push their fight for justice closer to the center of the world’s attention.

But June 5 will shape the outline of this next chapter in the Palestinian saga: its intensity, its length, and what follows it. Was May 15 a singular moment, or perhaps one suited for occasional repetition? Or was it the harbinger of a sustained, consistent struggle to come, a Third Intifada simultaneously challenging Israel from within, on every border, and across the globe?

Palestinians have amply demonstrated their ability to resist occupation over the long haul, while the global solidarity network supporting them has reacted capably to atrocities like the slaughters of 1,400 Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead and nine passengers on the first Freedom Flotilla. If these two movements can organize and mobilize as effectively now, seizing a unique opportunity to take the offensive and keep it, the Palestinian freedom struggle could prove a quicker and more decisive one than many of us had dared to hope.

~ Joe Catron is a resident of Brooklyn, New York and a current member of the International Solidarity Movement ~ Gaza Strip. He writes in a personal capacity.

IODINE TREATMENT FOR RADIATION EXPOSURE

Just some more information on potassium iodide from my friend Arthur over at Radical Press.  More than anything, watch the films and learn what we are dealing with. The bottom video focuses on air flows and the traveling of the particles, along with projected time lines when extra measures should be considered. These clouds do not just drop it all, they circle the planet and yes, Europe will get them too, just after they have done their damage in North America. 

Dear Radical Reader:

The old expression, "An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure" may well be advisable considering the growing threat of radiation exposure from the Japanese nuclear disaster. Please consider reading the article below. I realize that you might tend to follow the mainstream media and so may be unaware of other factors but this is no time to not take extra precautions.

It might be a good idea to send this information along to friends as well. Do go to the site itself to see any videos as well.

Shine your Light for Love, Peace & Justice for All,

Arthur Topham

Publisher/Editor

http://www.radicalpress.com

Canada's Radical News Network

"Digging to the root of the issues since 1998"

 

radical@radicalpress.com

http://blog.imva.info/medicine/iodine-treatments-radiation-exposure

Iodine Treatments for Radiation Exposure

Posted by Mark Sircus on 14 March 2011 | Filed under Medicine

After testing over 500 patients,

I found that 94.7 percent of my patients

are deficient in inorganic iodine.

~ Dr. David Brownstein

Clearly we are just at the beginning of this disaster and very far from its end, and already it is unprecedented in scope. “If this accident stops right now it will already be one of the three worst accidents we have ever had at a nuclear power plant in the history of nuclear power,” said Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear materials and president of the U.S.-based Ploughshares Fund, a firm involved in security and peace funding.

There is absolutely zero chance that this disaster in progress is going to stop now or any time soon, so precautions need to be taken right away by every citizen in the northern hemisphere that is downwind and on the track of the jet stream that will quickly carry radioactive materials first to North America then to Europe and beyond to Russia. This is all going to be much worse than people want to believe, so rush to get your iodine right now! Get your hands on whatever you can for in a few days there will be no iodine to have of any type.

Dr. Brownstein writes,

“If there is enough inorganic, non-radioactive iodine in our bodies, the radioactive fallout has nowhere to bind in our bodies. It will pass through us, leaving our bodies unharmed. It is important to ensure that we have adequate iodine levels BEFORE this fallout hits.”

There is some very important information about iodine below not being presented by the government or press. This is an IMVA Emergency Alert and we will be updating this document in the days and weeks ahead so check back to the IMVA blog for the most current form.

Think again, 

think seven times again 

before you leap and start construction

of new nuclear power plants.

~ Mikhail Gorbachev ~ June 2006

.

Though the United States, Canadian and European governments are not warning their citizens of the dangers that will drop down on them from the jet stream, this following video does a good visual job of showing what areas will be most affected. With the true size of the catastrophe starting to take shape populations downwind across the entire northern hemisphere had better start becoming concerned enough to secure supplies of iodine to protect themselves from one large part of the radioactive dangers.

Humans tolerate large doses of iodine so the very high dosages recommended for protection for radioactive iodine are not usually a problem except for those who already have serious problems with their thyroids, which is quite a lot of people considering how many are deficient in this vital nutrient.

The government’s recommendation of a onetime pulse dose might perhaps be appropriate when confronted with a nuclear blast but for chronic long term exposure, which is suggested with what is in progress in Japan, calls for different formula and dosages through time.

Dr. Michael B. Schachter says,

“The treatment dose when a person is iodine insufficient is generally between 12.5 mg and 50 mg daily. Preliminary research indicates that if a person is iodine insufficient, it takes about three months to become iodine sufficient while ingesting a dosage of 50 mg of iodine daily and a year to achieve that while ingesting a dosage of 12.5 mg of iodine daily.

If radiation threatens, it behooves people to start taking the highest dosages tolerable to protect not only their thyroids but also all the glandular tissues as well. Iodine protects the thyroid, breasts, prostate and ovary glands as well as other tissues in the body from radiation if present in sufficient quantities.

When treating life-threatening diseases we do not have months to fool around with low dosages. We need to zoom up iodine levels quickly. And we need to get it concentrated to certain tissues or organs. Just to give you an idea of how high iodine dosages have been taken we have to revisit the 1930s when iodine was still a universal medicine present in the U.S. Pharmacopeia and used at much higher dosages than anyone even dreams of using today.
.

The usual dose for treatment back then was 300 mgs (46 drops of full strength Lugol’s) to 1 gm (1000 mg, 154 drops). It is very important to realize that today’s Lugol’s is not universally the same as it was because of new federal legal requirements about concentration levels. The best company offers Lugol’s at varying concentration levels.

Potassium iodide (also called KI) is a salt of stable (not radioactive) iodine. Stable iodine is an important chemical needed by the body to make thyroid hormones. Following a radiological or nuclear event, radioactive iodine may be released into the air and then breathed into the lungs of any being breathing that air. Radioactive iodine may also contaminate the local food supply and get into the body through food or drink. 

In the case of internal contamination with radioactive iodine, the thyroid gland quickly absorbs this chemical. Radioactive iodine absorbed by the thyroid can then injure the gland. Because non-radioactive iodine acts to block radioactive iodine from being taken into the thyroid gland, it can help protect this gland from injury.

There will be little or no time to consult doctors and other health care practitioners to get the proper dosage. 

 .

The standard dose for potassium iodide during radiation emergencies: For infants, babies and children, KI is administered for exposure of 5 centigrays (cGy) or more. For birth through 1 month, 16 mg can be administered; for 1 month through 3 years, 32 mg can be administered; for 3-12 years, 65 mg can be administered; for adolescents ages 12-18 years, 65 mg can be administered (or up to 120 mg if the adolescent is approaching adult size).

Nascent Iodine

Nascent iodine, though more expensive, actually tastes and feels good while going down and is gentle enough to give to children, who do not seem to complain about its taste. My recommendation would be to use the Nascent Iodine  in high dosages to both saturate the thyroid (which makes it less vulnerable to chemical and radioactive attack) while it will also knock out any contaminants already absorbed.

Nascent iodine contains approximately 400 mcg per drop so 10 drops is 4 mg and 100 drops is only 40 so it’s safe to take much higher dosages than is suggested on the bottle. In fact one has to completely ignore the suggested dosages on the bottle and take some of the information below as one’s guidance for dealing with threatening radiation dropping down out of the clouds that are moving along with the jet stream.

One hundred drops a day is a strong dose, but when treating life threatening diseases it would not be unheard of to use upward of 200 drops a day in divided doses, but if you get your iodine on the day the news is sounding the radiation alarm I would jump right to 100 drops or 50 drops in divided dosages for children. It is my belief that the Nascent atomic form is much more efficient than the molecular form meaning you would need less but when confronted with a cloud of radiation one wants to work beyond the speculative. Again the government is recommending a onetime dosage, which makes sense if there is no time to address iodine deficiencies.

In normal conditions it is important to remember that one should not shoot straight up to these dosage levels; rather, start at low dosages and monitor for detoxification reactions, which will be less if sodium bicarbonate and other substances are used in conjunction with it. But in emergencies involving radiation we have not the luxury of time so one has to thrust iodine levels up sharply in burst dosages.

Dr. Brownstein said he was using 200-300 mg with his prostate and breast cancer patients, and those who have metastases needing the highest dosages. He also uses both Lugol’s and Nascent reserving the Nascent for his more sensitive patients. There is also the tablet form of varying dosages (Iodoral), which is used by more than several of the iodine doctors I know.

Iodine is needed in microgram amounts for the thyroid, milligram amounts for breast and other tissues, and can be used therapeutically in gram amounts. ~ Dr. David Miller

Potassium iodide can be found in many health food stores. Combinations of iodide/iodine can be obtained from holistic physicians. Iodoral, Iodozyme HP, and Lugol’s solution are examples of this form of iodine. I prefer the Nascent iodine, especially for children, because it is gentler on the system being that it is in the atomic form making it easy for the body to convert it into the needed forms ~ iodide and iodine.

These onetime high pulse dosages of potassium iodine are necessary during an emergency but they do not come without some risk of side effects, which include: severe allergic reactions (rash, hives, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest, swelling of the mouth, face, lips or tongue), black, tarry stools, confusion, fever, irregular heartbeat, metallic taste in the mouth, mouth sores, numbness or tingling of the hands or feet, skin rash, stomach pains, swelling in the neck or throat, unusual tiredness, weakness.

Endocrinologic side effects have included both hyper- and hypothyroidism. By inhibiting the release of thyroid hormone from the thyroid gland, iodide can cause goiter and hypothyroidism. This has been called the Wolff-Chaikoff effect, occurring in approximately four percent of patients and may be more likely in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Iodide may induce hyperthyroidism, called the Jod-Basedow effect, when given to patients with preexisting iodide deficiency or autonomous, “hot” thyroid nodules. Iodide can cause parotid gland swelling.

Usually, side effects of potassium iodide happen when people take higher doses for a long time but they can occur from taking the government’s recommended onetime pulse dose. The standard warning from the mainstream is that “we should be careful not to take more than the recommended dose or take it for longer than you are told,” which is only once.

“Side effects are unlikely because of the low dose and the short time you will be taking the drug.”

This is not good advice at all since too-low dosages will not protect one from the radioactive iodine fallout and the short time of application is absolutely out of the question when the fallout will be continuous, as it will be because of the continuous venting of radioactive materials into the atmosphere at the crippled Japanese reactor sites.

When faced with a radioactive cloud it is absolutely imperative that you take iodine, whatever iodine you can get your hands on. If the only iodine available is topical iodine that is not suitable for oral use then you should paint your body and your children’s bodies with it. Few people have ready access to the Nascent iodine so will not enjoy its ease of application in repeated measured dosages that are more gentle to the system, thus yielding fewer side effects. Because Nascent is in the atomic form (I¹), it is absorbed faster and that can also be advantageous in emergency situations. Its only downside is the expense of having to use so much of it.

DON’T TRUST GOVERNMENTS RECOMMENDATIONS

Dr. John W. Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology in the University of California at Berkeley, has written extensively about the effort to belittle the menace of low-level radiation. People associated with the nuclear and medical industries assert falsely, “there is no evidence that exposure to low-dose radiation causes any cancer ~ the risk is only theoretical,” or “the risk is utterly negligible,” or “the accidental exposures were below the safe level,” and even “there is reasonably good evidence that exposure to low-dose radiation is beneficial and lowers the cancer rate.”

By any reasonable standard of scientific proof, the weight of the human evidence shows decisively that cancer is inducible by ionizing radiation even at the lowest possible dose and dose-rate ~ which means that the risk is never theoretical.

Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling described this process as follows: 

“The rays of high-energy radiation are like little bullets that shoot through the body. They tear electrons away from molecules and through subsequent reactions of the molecular ions that are formed, the molecules may be broken in two, some atoms may be torn away from them, some new molecules may be formed.

“The dose of 500 roentgens that usually leads to death by acute radiation sickness causes about 500,000 changed molecules to be formed in each cell.

“If any of the special molecules [that control the process by which the cell divides] happen to be damaged by a single little bullet of radiation from a single radioactive atom, it may be changed in such a way as to cause the cell to divide much more rapidly than the other cells.

“This cell may then produce a colony of rapidly dividing cells, which in the course of time would outnumber the normal cells of that type. Then the human being may die from cancer ~ perhaps leukemia, bone cancer, some other kind of cancer ~ caused by the single radioactive atom that produced the single little bullet of radiation.”

Radioactive materials, plutonium in particular, affect the deepest level of the human being ~ bone marrow, DNA,genetic structure, inner organs and the deepest of emotions. The message is clear. We have created a horrific heritage. ~ Jeremy Sherr

Iodine will do nothing to protect a person from uranium, cesium or plutonium radiation exposure so one has to turn to my full protocol and especially to eating clay and clay baths to try to remove these other particles as fast as possible.

For the government’s perspective on potassium iodide please go to the CDC site.

WISCONSIN POLICE HAVE JOINED PROTEST INSIDE STATE CAPITOL

"To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that." ~ Janeane Garofalo

 

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: "Whose?" ~ Don Marquis

"The first thing a dictator does is abolish the free press. 

Next he abolishes the right of labor to go on strike." ~ George Seldes

 

Okay I have been ignoring a HUGE story in the US of A.  We complain that Americans are apathetic and lazy about having their rights removed from them, one by one, as they sit about watching sports and drinking beer. Something has changed in the state of Wisconsin. The apathy is gone and the people are moving. 

These folks may not be activists for the humanitarian causes I usually present here, but what is happening in Wisconsin is HUGE!  Its significance for the working American cannot be underestimated. For decades TPTB have been destabilizing and crushing unions in their rapacious need to have absolute control over their workers and work conditions. As a result they have run roughshod over Americans, each attack leaving them with  less. No one sindividual dared speak out for fear of unemployment; they just took it on the chin and were grateful for the work. SLAVERY.

Before the turn of the last century, life for the ordinary person was grim. They worked hard long hours, including the children, under unsafe conditions and were truthfully little more than underpaid slaves, yet happy to at least have a pittance for bare survival wages.  Then came unionization. People began to see they had power in large groups. They could slow or stop business and cut into the profit margins of the (usually robber) barons and be heard. There were many wars between the strikers and the PTB who used violent means to put the unionizers down. Many died in extremely violent marches that turned violent when the authorities began shooting and killing.

However, in the long run, with much struggle and determination, unions were formed and circumstances improved for the common worker. No one teaches of these events in school because the current PTB plan is to kill all unions once again so that big business can reap greater profits off the backs of the everyday worker.  It is also difficult even on line to find adequate information without some serious digging beyond the negativity. For the past few decades as unions were squashed, people just accepted the loss of their benefits, jobs, hours cut, etc. All part of the cost of keeping a job that has covered less and less in these days of runaway inflation.

It seems the good folk of Wisconsin have had enough! No more union busting. Return of their rights. As I just browsed looking for a cartoon or two on unions to post here, I found that almost all of them were terribly anti union. From the 1800's till today, all warning, in one way or another, of the evil of organized labour. Of course that would be because, as today, propoganda in the media was in full swing. The problem, according to the PTB is simply that unions put power into the hands of the serfs, something they really really realllly don't like. So they did their damndest to ensure this attitude became that of the people. They only divided the populace in one more manner, pro and anti union.

I pray that this action in Wisconsin opens the eyes of more Americans to what is being done to them and that they might take up their power again and stop taking it on the chin just to survive. It is also extremely heartening to note that the police force has joined with the people. Heartening not just because they have joined in the struggle, but because they have shown their human side and are not behaving like militia thugs as has been the general direction law enforcement has be moving towards so rapidly.

**PTB = Powers That Be

The Understory

February 27, 2011

From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports:

“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”

Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today:

“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.”

Ryan HarveyYou can find more updates from Ryan Harvey on Twitter @ryanharveysongs and his blog Even If Your Voice Shakes.

UPDATE: This video says it all. It makes me proud of my neighbors. “Let me tell you Mr. Walker, this is not your house, this is all our house.”

UPDATE 2-27: I’ve got to say a huge thank you to Ryan Harvey for the incredible on-the-spot reporting from inside the Wisconsin state capitol. Keep ‘em coming Ryan!

In this next video, Ryan interviews Brian Austin of the Madison Professional Police Officers Association, who is featured in the video above.

Not only are police officers on the side of labor inside the capitol, so is the chief of police. Bill Glauber reported this evening from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“The people who are in the building will be allowed to stay,” Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs said Sunday night. “There will be no arrests unless people violate the law.”

Tubbs…announced the decision to let the protesters stay after he saw how they moved aside while work crews went about cleaning the Capitol, including mopping and polishing floors.

“People are very cooperative,” the police chief said. “I appreciate that.”

As this long night comes to a end, I leave you with this final piece of good news from Ryan’s Twitter feed:

“Huge news! Republican senator dale shultz has announced that he is switching sides and opposing the bill!!! 2 more to go!”

Rock on Wisconsin.

Remind the politicians who have forgotten, 

and the corporations in denial,

and any folks out there who aren’t sure their voice really counts, 

that the true power of these United States

is with The People. 

And it’s time to get used to the idea.

SHUHADA STREET CHAOS

  

Shuhada Street as it was in the past.

It is a total coincidence that I just did a post that had me hunting for images of the tomb of mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. Then I read here it is today the 16^th anniversary of his vicious cowardly assault upon praying Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Shahuda Street has been highly contested since then and forbidden to Palestinians who regularly seek to return but are, of course, denied. However, I am sure that today, it will be full of those who admire Goldstein and call him "hero". Cowards all to celebrate such an atrocity and such a warped individual.

.

 

Shuhada Street today.

Editor Palestine Monitor,

25 February 2011
Witness Gaza.com

Closed exactly 16 years ago when American-born Israeli Baruch Goldstein killed 29 worshipers and wounded 125 with an IMI Galil assault rifle in the burial place of Abraham, this effective clotting of the heart of The Old City of Hebron has devastated the local market economy in tandem with rapacious settler colonization.

“The people want an end to the occupation,” bellowed the protesters. “The people want Shuhada Street.”

After the Friday prayer, the mixed crowd of foreigners, Israeli activists and Palestinians marched down into the border line of H1 and H2, respectively Palestinian Authority and Israeli military zones of control. At H1, riot-geared green military and blue police forces covered the ground and dotted buildings.
.

 

An initial cordon of six blue policemen could not hold the tide, and the protesters broke through. All began to run and made their way east towards Bab Al Baladia, or the entrance to the Old City. Israeli forces reformed in front of the Shavei Hebron yeshiva. When the protesters arrived, police detonated sound bombs and launched teargas canisters at close range and level to the ground ~ both actions are illegal under Israeli law.

In the ensuing chaos, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi was dragged by his bodyguard after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers to the relative safety of the Old City’s souq. 
.

 Dr. Barghouthi speaking to the soldiers

There, about forty Palestinians regrouped, wrecked by the gas. Palestinian Medical Relief Society health workers treated two suffering men as angry soldiers approached.

“They don’t want to arrest me,” Dr. Barghouthi said. “I told them I won’t move. They don’t want a scandal.”

After an Israeli officer tried in vain to escort Dr. Barghouthi away, the small group left the shadow of Al-Khalil’s trashnets and rejoined the protest’s other half. Soon, they chanted solidarity between Silwan and Hebron and “life to the revolution.”
.

Even with wire mesh as protection, the kids manage to throw small enough rocks to shatter the glass.

The soldiers and police began advancing on the crowd and arrested two International Solidarity Movement activists and at least one Palestinian. They grabbed protest leaders and pulled them to the sides as once again chaos reigned in Al-Khalil.

“Why are you doing this?” Dr. Barghouthi said while being shoved. “We are non-violent.”

The crowd dispersed into the alleys and side streets of Al-Khalil as ISM and Israeli activists were apprehended. Young men and boys began throwing stones, and police and soldiers returned fire with teargas grenades. As the youth fell back into the narrow streets between stone Palestinian homes, fuming teargas canisters followed in pursuit.

After the shabab stopped throwing stones and soldiers retreated towards the settler enclaves in H2, the remnants of the protest massed on the west side of the Old City. Tired and worn from the day, they had little time to rest.

Two squads of Palestinian Authority riot-police marched towards the mélange of international, Israeli and Palestinian activists, their batons swinging slightly to the left of their large plastic shields. Everyone left ~ according to Human Rights Watch, 95 percent of PA prisoners are tortured.

.

Young settlers, future IDF, "the kindest military in the world", walking down Shuhada Street banging on doors of Palestinians, saying rude things, spitting and tossing stones at both Palestinians and visitors.The one in blue has a particularly maniacal smirk.

Photographers were told their work is mamnu3a ~ forbidden ~ by gruff plainclothes PA operators.

The popular demand for the reopening of Shuhada Street began with Israeli overreaction and ended with PA police.

100 000 IRISH TAKE TO THE STREETS TO PROTEST PROMISED CUTS

November 27, 2010

 More than 100,000 people gather in Dublin 

to demonstrate against four-year austerity plan to reduce debts

• Henry McDonald Dublin
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 November 2010 14.23 GMT

More than 100,000 Irish citizens took to the streets of Dublin today to protest against the international bailout and four years of austerity.

Despite overnight snow storms and freezing temperatures, huge crowds have gathered in O’Connell Street to demonstrate against the cuts aimed at driving down Ireland‘s colossal national debt.

So far the march has passed off peacefully although there is a huge Garda presence with up to 700 officers on duty working alongside 250 security guards for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Among the marchers there is deep anger that most of the more than €80bn (£67bn) from the EU and the International Monetary Fund will be given to shore up Ireland's ailing banks.

Marching in the rally was Irish builder Mick Wallace who has had to lay off 100 workers due to the crash in the construction industry. Wallace said it was time the Irish became more militant.

"We should be more like the French and get onto the streets more often. Because our politicians go over to Europe and tell the EU that our people do not demonstrate, they don't take to the streets. It's time we changed that and openly opposed what is going on," he said.

Placards carried by the marchers reflect the mood of anger and humiliation at having to be bailed out by the EU and IMF. One was designed to look like an estate agent's billboard and read: "3,599 square miles For Sale. Full Planning Permission Granted".

The protest has not halted at the GPO in Dublin, the scene of the 1916 rising where trade unionists and workers are denouncing the government's cost cutting programme which will take €15bn out of the Irish economy over the next four years.Read more at:  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/27/ireland-bailout-angry-demonstrators-dublin

VIETNAM: THE SOLDIERS' REVOLT

This is an old blog from Kenny's Sideshow, posted December 6, 2008. The reason I am putting it up is that this is part of Vietnam that was not common knowledge. This unnecessary genocidal war damaged or took the lives of millions and millions more will deal with its aftermath forever due to the use of chemicals and radiation which has altered the genetic make up of so many, both Vietnamese and American.

However, at this point, ordinary people of this world are getting beyond war weary. America is flexing its muscles for its masters in every part of the world. There are steps people can take to begin the unmilitarization of the minds of our youth. The strong first step is to move away from violent war games that so many children play and control the entertainment they see. In this age of the omnipotent child that may "go against the rights of the child" but it is also time parents reclaimed their position in the family unit.

how the cia and military complex control the music and film industries

SNIPPITS and SNAPPITS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE PENTAGON ~ A love affair

Due to a manufactured decline of employment opportunities in the United States, not to mention inferior education in many cases, young Americans, both male and female have fewer and fewer employment options other than to enlist and go to fight dirty wars for dirty people against primarily normal people in their own countries who never wanted or needed "democracy".

At the end you will find a few decent links and articles about soldiers refusing to fight in "our" wars today.

Am I blessed to have lived through two war times?

Not in the least.

Apocalypse Now was not just an amazing movie with disturbing visuals and a great sound track. It is how it was for millions of American men. This is how it was in Vietnam. The war with no boundaries. The crazy war. The war which many thousands refused to fight and either fled their country or faced time in prison. This was the war with such great music as a backdrop, the war that such great music rang out against. The war that finally drove young men to the point of refusing to fight.

Another thought. Although we did not realize or hear much about the NWO back then, when one reviews the events of the time, one sees the group mindthink and social manipulation of our fledgling society. A huge mass of humanity, the bubble known as the baby boomers had thoughts of peace and love in mind for the planet. By sheer number alone, we felt we could do anything, change everything the older generation had left in ruins. The shock of Vietnam was a major component of the trauma aspect of the mind control conditioning adding to the death of our naive inspirations.

Could this happen in Afghanistan? Could this happen in Iraq? Please read the following and consider this option. With words, images, testimonies, I hope more see that it is possible to stand together and make change as the men of Vietnam helped end the war.

To paraphrase Einstein, partial creator of the atom bomb (!), for there to be an end to war, young men and women must refuse to serve.

The Soldier's Revolt
by Joel Geier

The original has been greatly overhauled although none of the original text has been changed. All images and words in this colour are my $.02 worth of Slippits and Snappits.

Our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and noncommissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous conditions exist among American forces in Vietnam that have only been exceeded in this century by...the collapse of the Tsarist armies in 1916 and 1917.

Armed Forces Journal, June 1971

The most neglected aspect of the Vietnam War is the soldiers' revolt ~ the mass upheaval from below that unraveled the American army. It is a great reality check in an era when the U.S. touts itself as an invincible nation.

For this reason,
the soldiers' revolt
has been written out of official history.

The army revolt pitted enlisted soldiers against officers
who viewed them as expendable.

Liberal academics have reduced the radicalism
of the 1960s to middle-class concerns and activities,
while ignoring military rebellion.

But the militancy of the 1960s began with the Black liberation struggle, and it reached its climax with the unity of White and Black soldiers.

This is Where We Take Our Stand - Trailer from Displaced Films on Vimeo.

The full series is now on line.
Click on a title to watch each individual episode:

Episode 1: For Those Who Would Judge Me
Episode 2: Rules of Engagement
Episode 3: Why We Fight
Episode 4: Broken Soldier
Episode 5: This is not Human Nature
Episode 6: No Longer a Monster

A working-class army

From 1964 to 1973, from the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, 27 million men came of draft age. A majority of them were not drafted due to college, professional, medical or National Guard deferments. Only 40 percent were drafted and saw military service. A small minority, 2.5 million men (about 10 percent of those eligible for the draft), were sent to Vietnam.

This small minority was almost entirely working-class or rural youth. Their average age was 19. Eighty-five percent of the troops were enlisted men; 15 percent were officers. The enlisted men were drawn from the 80 percent of the armed forces with a high school education or less. At this time, college education was universal in the middle class.

In the elite colleges, the class discrepancy was even more glaring. The upper class did none of the fighting. Of the 1,200 Harvard graduates in 1970, only 2 went to Vietnam, while working-class high schools routinely sent 20 percent, 30 percent of their graduates and more to Vietnam.

College students who were not made officers were usually assigned to non-combat support and service units. High school dropouts were three times more likely to be sent to combat units that did the fighting and took the casualties. Combat infantry soldiers, "the grunts," were entirely working class. They included a disproportionate number of Black working-class troops. Blacks, who formed 12 percent of the troops, were often 25 percent or more of the combat units.

When college deferments expired, joining the National Guard was a favorite way to get out of serving in Vietnam. During the war, 80 percent of the Guard's members described themselves as joining to avoid the draft. You needed connections to get in ~ which was no problem for Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and other draft evaders.

In 1968, the Guard had a waiting list of more than 100,000. It had triple the percentage of college graduates that the army did. Blacks made up less than 1.5 percent of the National Guard. In Mississippi, Blacks were 42 percent of the population, but only one Black man served in a Guard of more than 10,000.


The middle-class officers corps

The officer corps was drawn from the 7 percent of troops who were college graduates, or the 13 percent who had one to three years of college. College was to officer as high school was to enlisted man. The officer corps was middle class in composition and managerial in outlook.

Superfluous support officers lived far removed from danger, lounging in rear base camps in luxurious conditions. A few miles away, combat soldiers were experiencing a nightmarish hell. The contrast was too great to allow for confidence ~ in both the officers and the war ~ to survive unscathed.

Westmoreland's solution to the competition for combat command poured gasoline on the fire. He ordered a one-year tour of duty for enlisted men in Vietnam, but only six months for officers. The combat troops hated the class discrimination that put them at twice the risk of their commanders. They grew contemptuous of the officers, whom they saw as raw and dangerously inexperienced in battle.

Even a majority of officers considered Westmoreland's tour inequality as unethical. Yet they were forced to use short tours to prove themselves for promotion. They were put in situations in which their whole careers depended on what they could accomplish in a brief period, even if it meant taking shortcuts and risks at the expense of the safety of their men ~ a temptation many could not resist.

The outer limit of six-month commands was often shortened due to promotion, relief, injury or other reasons. The outcome was "revolving-door" commands. As an enlisted man recalled, "During my year in-country I had five second-lieutenant platoon leaders and four company commanders. One CO was pretty good...All the rest were stupid."

American men in Nam. This is not how we like to think of our sons behaving, but as crazy as wars are, this one was more off the wall than most. It is no wonder, with such memories, so many men returned psychologically damaged.

Aggravating this was the contradiction that guaranteed opposition between officers and men in combat. Officer promotions depended on quotas of enemy dead from search-and-destroy missions. Battalion commanders who did not furnish immediate high body counts were threatened with replacement. This was no idle threat ~ battalion commanders had a 30 to 50 percent chance of being relieved of command.

But search-and-destroy missions produced enormous casualties for the infantry soldiers. Officers corrupted by career ambitions would cynically ignore this and draw on the never-ending supply of replacements from the monthly draft quota.

Officer corruption was rife. A Pentagon official writes, "the stench of corruption rose to unprecedented levels during William C. Westmoreland's command of the American effort in Vietnam."

The CIA protected the poppy fields of Vietnamese officials and flew their heroin out of the country on Air America planes. Officers took notice and followed suit. The major who flew the U.S. ambassador's private jet was caught smuggling $8 million of heroin on the plane.

The war was fought by NLF troops and peasant auxiliaries who worked the land during the day and fought as soldiers at night. They would attack ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) and American troops and bases or set mines at night, and then disappear back into the countryside during the day.

If she had been fighting for freedom, why is this vet being arrested for expressing her distaste for the very war she was part of?

In this form of guerrilla war, there were no fixed targets, no set battlegrounds, and there was no territory to take. With that in mind, the Pentagon designed a counterinsurgency strategy called "search and destroy."

Without fixed battlegrounds, combat success was judged by the number of NLF troops killed ~ the body count. A somewhat more sophisticated variant was the "kill ratio" ~ the number of enemy troops killed compared to the number of Americans dead. This "war of attrition" strategy was the basic military plan of the American ruling class in Vietnam.

For each enemy killed, for every body counted, soldiers got three-day passes and officers received medals and promotions. This reduced the war from fighting for "the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese" to no larger purpose than killing. Any Vietnamese killed was put in the body count as a dead enemy soldier, or as the GIs put it, "if it's dead, it's Charlie" ("Charlie" was GI slang for the NLF).

This was an inevitable outcome of a war against a whole people. Everyone in Vietnam became the enemy ~ and this encouraged random slaughter. Officers further ordered their men to "kill them even if they try to surrender ~ we need the body count." It was an invitation to kill indiscriminately to swell a tally sheet.

Rather than following their officers,
many more soldiers had the courage
to revolt against barbarism

Ninety-five percent of combat units were search-and-destroy units. Their mission was to go out into the jungle, hit bases and supply areas, flush out NLF troops and engage them in battle. If the NLF fought back, helicopters would fly in to prevent retreat and unleash massive firepower ~ bullets, bombs, missiles.

The NLF would attempt to avoid this, and battle generally only occurred if the search-and-destroy missions were ambushed. Ground troops became the live bait for the ambush and firefight. GIs referred to search and destroy as "humping the boonies by dangling the bait."

Without helicopters, search and destroy would not have been possible ~ and the helicopters were the terrain of the officers. "On board the command and control chopper rode the battalion commander, his aviation-support commander, the artillery-liaison officer, the battalion S-3 and the battalion sergeant major. They circled...high enough to escape random small-arms fire." The officers directed their firepower on the NLF down below, but while indiscriminately spewing out bombs and napalm, they could not avoid "collateral damage" ~ hitting their own troops.

One-quarter of the American dead in Vietnam
was killed by "friendly fire" from the choppers.

The officers were out of danger, the "eye in the sky," while the troops had their "asses in the grass," open to fire from both the NLF and the choppers.

When the battle was over, the officers and their choppers would fly off to base camps removed from danger while their troops remained out in the field.

Of the 543,000 American troops in Vietnam in 1968, only 14 percent (or 80,000) were combat troops. These 80,000 men took the brunt of the war. They were the weak link, and their disaffection crippled the ability of the world's largest military to fight.

In 1968, 14,592 men ~ 18 percent of combat troops ~ were killed. An additional 35,000 had serious wounds that required hospitalization. Although not all of the dead and wounded were from combat units, the overwhelming majority were. The majority of combat troops in 1968 were either seriously injured or killed. The number of American casualties in Vietnam was not extreme, but as it was concentrated among the combat troops, it was a virtual massacre. Not to revolt amounted to suicide.

Officers, high in the sky, had few deaths or casualties. The deaths of officers occurred mostly in the lower ranks among lieutenants or captains who led combat platoons or companies. The higher-ranking officers went unharmed. During a decade of war, only one general and eight full colonels died from enemy fire. As one study commissioned by the military concluded, "In Vietnam...the officer corps simply did not die in sufficient numbers or in the presence of their men often enough."

The slaughter of grunts went on because the officers never found it unacceptable. There was no outcry from the military or political elite, the media or their ruling-class patrons about this aspect of the war, nor is it commented on in almost any history of the war. It is ignored or accepted as a normal part of an unequal world, because the middle and upper class were not in combat in Vietnam and suffered no pain from its butchery.

This mindset, the pack mind, could explain how good boys commit atrocities in wartime.

It never would have been tolerated had their class done the fighting. Their premeditated murder of combat troops unleashed class war in the armed forces. The revolt focused on ending search and destroy through all of the means the army had provided as training for these young workers.

Tet ~ the revolt begins

The Tet Offensive was the turning point of the Vietnam War and the start of open, active soldiers' rebellion. At the end of January 1968, on Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, the NLF sent 100,000 troops into Saigon and 36 provincial capitals to lead a struggle for the cities.

The Tet Offensive was not militarily successful, because of the savagery of the U.S. counterattack. In Saigon alone, American bombs killed 14,000 civilians. The city of Ben Tre became emblematic of the U.S. effort when the major who retook it announced that "to save the city, we had to destroy it."

Westmoreland and his generals claimed that they were the victors of Tet because they had inflicted so many casualties on the NLF. But to the world, it was clear that the U.S. had politically lost the war in Vietnam. Tet showed that the NLF had the overwhelming support of the Vietnamese population ~ millions knew of and collaborated with the NLF entry into the cities and no one warned the Americans.

The ARVN had turned over whole cities without firing a shot. In some cases, ARVN troops had welcomed the NLF and turned over large weapons supplies. The official rationale for the war, that U.S. troops were there to help the Vietnamese fend off Communist aggression from the North, was no longer believed by anybody. The South Vietnamese government and military were clearly hated by the people.37

Westmoreland's constant claim that there was "light at the end of the tunnel," that victory was imminent, was shown to be a lie. Search and destroy was a pipe dream. The NLF did not have to be flushed out of the jungle, it operated everywhere. No place in Vietnam was a safe base for American soldiers when the NLF so decided.

What, then, was the point of this war?

Why should American troops fight to defend a regime its own people despised?

Soldiers became furious at a government and an officer corps who risked their lives for lies. Throughout the world, Tet and the confidence that American imperialism was weak and would be defeated produced a massive, radical upsurge that makes 1968 famous as the year of revolutionary hope. In the U.S. army, it became the start of the showdown with the officers.

Mutiny

The refusal of an order to advance into combat is an act of mutiny. In time of war, it is the gravest crime in the military code, punishable by death. In Vietnam, mutiny was rampant, the power to punish withered and discipline collapsed as search and destroy was revoked from below.

Until 1967, open defiance of orders was rare and harshly repressed, with sentences of two to ten years for minor infractions. Hostility to search-and-destroy missions took the form of covert combat avoidance, called "sandbagging" by the grunts. A platoon sent out to "hump the boonies" might look for a safe cover from which to file fabricated reports of imaginary activity.

Combat Refusal. Where soldiers refused to obey orders this became known as a "combat refusal". In a report for Pacifica Radio, journalist Richard Boyle went to the base to interview a dozen "grunts" from the First Cavalry Division. The GI's had been ordered on a nighttime combat mission the previous night. Six of the men had refused to go and several others had objected to the order. This is also referred to in "NAM ~ The Story of the Vietnam War (Issue 8)" where a photograph can also be found and captioned "These battle-weary troops from the 1st Air Cav had just staged a "combat refusal" at the PACE firebase.

These battle-weary troops from the 1st Air Cav had just staged a "combat refusal" at the PACE fire-base."They'll have to court-martial the whole company," one soldier insisted. "I say right away they can start typing up my court-martial." These GI's objected not only to what they saw as a suicidal mission but to the war effort itself. Another soldier piped in: "I always did believe in protecting my own country, if it came down to that. But I'm over here fighting a war for a cause that means nothing to me." Historians say so-called "combat refusals" became increasingly common in Vietnam after 1969. Soldiers also expressed their opposition to the war in underground newspapers and coffee-house rap sessions. Some wore black armbands in the field.

But after Tet, there was a massive shift from combat avoidance to mutiny. One Pentagon official reflected that "mutiny became so common that the army was forced to disguise its frequency by talking instead of 'combat refusal.'" Combat refusal, one commentator observed, "resembled a strike and occurred when GIs refused, disobeyed, or negotiated an order into combat."

Acts of mutiny took place on a scale previously only encountered in revolutions. The first mutinies in 1968 were unit and platoon-level rejections of the order to fight. The army recorded 68 such mutinies that year.

By 1970, in the 1st Air Cavalry Division alone, there were 35 acts of combat refusal. One military study concluded that combat refusal was "

unlike mutinous outbreaks of the past, which were usually sporadic, short-lived events. The progressive unwillingness of American soldiers to fight to the point of open disobedience took place over a four-year period between 1968-71."

The 1968 combat refusals of individual units expanded to involve whole companies by the next year. The first reported mass mutiny was in the 196th Light Brigade in August 1969. Company A of the 3rd Battalion, down to 60 men from its original 150, had been pushing through Songchang Valley under heavy fire for five days when it refused an order to advance down a perilous mountain slope.

Word of the mutiny spread rapidly. The New York Daily News ran a banner headline, "Sir, My Men Refuse To Go." The GI paper, The Bond, accurately noted,

"It was an organized strike...A shaken brass relieved the company commander...but they did not charge the guys with anything. The Brass surrendered to the strength of the organized men."

This precedent ~ no court-martial for refusing to obey the order to fight, but the line officer relieved of his command ~ was the pattern for the rest of the war. Mass insubordination was not punished by an officer corps that lived in fear of its own men.

Even the threat of punishment often backfired.

In one famous incident, B Company of the 1st Battalion of the 12th Infantry refused an order to proceed into NLF-held territory. When they were threatened with court-martials, other platoons rallied to their support and refused orders to advance until the army backed down.

As the fear of punishment faded, mutinies mushroomed. There were at least ten reported major mutinies, and hundreds of smaller ones. Hanoi's Vietnam Courier documented 15 important GI rebellions in 1969.

At Cu Chi, troops from the 2nd Battalion of the 27th Infantry refused battle orders. The "CBS Evening News" broadcast live a patrol from the 7th Cavalry telling their captain that his order for direct advance against the NLF was nonsense, that it would threaten casualties, and that they would not obey it.

Another CBS broadcast televised the mutiny of a rifle company of the 1st Air Cavalry Division.

When Cambodia was invaded in 1970, soldiers from Fire Base Washington conducted a sit-in. They told Up Against the Bulkhead,

"We have no business there...we just sat down. Then they promised us we wouldn't have to go to Cambodia." Within a week, there were two additional mutinies, as men from the 4th and 8th Infantry refused to board helicopters to Cambodia.

In the invasion of Laos in March 1971, two platoons refused to advance. To prevent the mutiny from spreading, the entire squadron was pulled out of the Laos operation. The captain was relieved of his command, but there was no discipline against the men. When a lieutenant from the 501st Infantry refused his battalion commander's order to advance his troops, he merely received a suspended sentence.

The decision not to punish men defying the most sacrosanct article of the military code, the disobedience of the order for combat, indicated how much the deterioration of discipline had eroded the power of the officers. The only punishment for most mutinies was to relieve the commanding officer of his duties.

Consequently, many commanders would not report that they had lost control of their men.

They swept news of mutiny, which would jeopardize their careers, under the rug.

As they became quietly complicit, the officer corps lost any remaining moral authority to impose discipline.

It is hard to maintain moral authority and discipline in situations where "moral authority" has never existed.

For every defiance in combat, there were hundreds of minor acts of insubordination in rear base camps. As one infantry officer reported, "You can't give orders and expect them to be obeyed." This democratic upsurge from below was so extensive that discipline was replaced by a new command technique called working it out.

Working it out was a form of collective bargaining in which negotiations went on between officers and men to determine orders. Working it out destroyed the authority of the officer corps and gutted the ability of the army to carry out search-and-destroy missions. But the army had no alternative strategy for a guerrilla war against a national liberation movement.

The political impact of the mutiny was felt far beyond Vietnam. As H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, reflected, "If troops are going to mutiny, you can't pursue an aggressive policy." The soldiers' revolt tied down the global reach of U.S. imperialism.

Fragging

The murder of American officers by their troops was an openly proclaimed goal in Vietnam. As one GI newspaper demanded, "Don't desert. Go to Vietnam, and kill your commanding officer." And they did. A new slang term arose to celebrate the execution of officers: fragging.

When one American killed another American, usually a superior officer or an NCO, the term "fragging" came into use. Although the term simply meant that a fragmentation grenade was used in the murder, it later became an all encompassing term for such an action. It is known that "fraggings" did occur during Vietnam, but the precise number is uncertain.

"During the years of 1969 down to 1973, we have the rise of fragging ~ that is, shooting or hand-grenading your NCO or your officer who orders you out into the field," says historian Terry Anderson of Texas A & M University.

"The US Army itself does not know exactly how many...officers were murdered. But they know at least 600 were murdered, and then they have another 1400 that died mysteriously. Consequently by early 1970, the army [was] at war not with the enemy but with itself."

In every war, troops kill officers whose incompetence or recklessness threatens the lives of their men. But only in Vietnam did this become pervasive in combat situations and widespread in rear base camps. It was the most well-known aspect of the class struggle inside the army, directed not just at intolerable officers, but at "lifers" as a class.

In the soldiers' revolt, it became accepted practice to paint political slogans on helmets. A popular helmet slogan summed up this mood: "Kill a non-com for Christ." Fragging was the ransom the ground troops extracted for being used as live bait.

No one knows how many officers were fragged, but after Tet it became epidemic. At least 800 to 1,000 fragging attempts using explosive devices were made. The army reported 126 fraggings in 1969, 271 in 1970 and 333 in 1971, when they stopped keeping count.

But in that year, just in the American Division (of My Lai fame), one fragging per week took place. Some military estimates are that fraggings occurred at five times the official rate, while officers of the Judge Advocate General Corps believed that only 10 percent of fraggings were reported. These figures do not include officers who were shot in the back by their men and listed as wounded or killed in action.

Most fraggings resulted in injuries, although "word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies or in bivouacs of certain units." The army admitted that it could not account for how 1,400 officers and noncommissioned officers died. This number, plus the official list of fragging deaths, has been accepted as the unacknowledged army estimate for officers killed by their men. It suggests that 20 to 25 percent ~ if not more ~ of all officers killed during the war were killed by enlisted men, not the "enemy." This figure has no precedent in the history of war.

Soldiers put bounties on officers targeted for fragging. The money, usually between $100 and $1,000, was collected by subscription from among the enlisted men. It was a reward for the soldier who executed the collective decision. The highest bounty for an officer was $10,000, publicly offered by GI Says, a mimeographed bulletin put out in the 101st Airborne Division, for Col. W. Honeycutt, who had ordered the May 1969 attack on Hill 937.

The hill had no strategic significance and was immediately abandoned when the battle ended. It became enshrined in GI folklore as Hamburger Hill, because of the 56 men killed and 420 wounded taking it. Despite several fragging attempts, Honeycutt escaped uninjured.


As Vietnam GI argued after Hamburger Hill,

"Brass are calling this a tremendous victory. We call it a goddam butcher shop...If you want to die so some lifer can get a promotion, go right ahead. But if you think your life is worth something, you better get yourselves together. If you don't take care of the lifers, they might damn well take care of you."

Fraggings were occasionally called off. One lieutenant refused to obey an order to storm a hill during an operation in the Mekong Delta.

"His first sergeant later told him that when his men heard him refuse that order, they removed a $350 bounty earlier placed on his head because they thought he was a 'hard-liner.'"

The motive for most fraggings was not revenge, but to change battle conduct. For this reason, officers were usually warned prior to fraggings.

First, a smoke grenade would be left near their beds. Those who did not respond would find a tear-gas grenade or a grenade pin on their bed as a gentle reminder.

Finally, the lethal grenade was tossed into the bed of sleeping, inflexible officers.

Officers understood the warnings and usually complied, becoming captive to the demands of their men.

It was the most practical means of cracking army discipline. The units whose officers responded opted out of search-and-destroy missions.

This mission was the most publicized of all when finally the world, despite all attempts by the military, learned about the horror of My-Lai. Charlie Company met no resistance; there were no Viet Cong present. Lt.Calley ordered the slaughter of the civilians. People were rounded up into ditches and machine-gunned. They lay five feet deep in the ditches; survivors trying to escape were shot. Calley spotted a baby crawling away from a ditch, grabbed her, threw her back into the ditch, and opened fire. Some of the dead were mutilated by having "C Company" carved into their chests; some were disemboweled. One GI would later say, "You didn’t have to look for people to kill, they were just there. I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I just lost all sense of direction."

"By lunch, they had slaughtered around 500 unarmed civilians. Within those few hours, members of Charlie Company had 'fooled around' and laughed as they sodomized and raped women, ripped vaginas open with knives, bayoneted civilians, scalped corpses, and carved "C Company" or the ace of spades onto their chests, slaughtered animals, and torched hooches. Other soldiers had wept openly as they fired on crowds of unresisting old men, women, children, and babies."

How could most of these men, raised to decent standards, not have begun to revolt against officers giving orders such as those above?

An Army judge who presided over fragging trials called fragging "the troops' way of controlling officers," and added that it was "deadly effective." He explained, "

Captain Steinberg argues that once an officer is intimidated by even the threat of fragging he is useless to the military because he can no longer carry out orders essential to the functioning of the Army. Through intimidation by threats ~ verbal and written...virtually all officers and NCOs have to take into account the possibility of fragging before giving an order to the men under them."

The fear of fragging affected officers and NCOs far beyond those who were actually involved in fragging incidents.

Officers who survived fragging attempts could not tell which of their men had tried to murder them, or when the men might strike again. They lived in constant fear of future attempts at fragging by unknown soldiers. In Vietnam it was a truism that "everyone was the enemy": for the lifers, every enlisted man was the enemy. "In parts of Vietnam fragging stirs more fear among officers and NCOs than does the war with 'Charlie.'"

Counter-fragging by retaliating officers contributed to a war within the war. While 80 percent of fraggings were of officers and NCOs, 20 percent were of enlisted men, as officers sought to kill potential troublemakers or those whom they suspected of planning to frag them. In this civil war within the army, the military police were used to reinstate order.

In October 1971, military police air assaulted the Praline mountain signal site to protect an officer who had been the target of repeated fragging attempts. The base was occupied for a week before command was restored.

Fragging undermined the ability of the Green Machine to function as a fighting force. By 1970, "many commanders no longer trusted Blacks or radical whites with weapons except on guard duty or in combat." In the American Division, fragmentation grenades were not given to troops. In the 440 Signal Battalion, the colonel refused to distribute all arms. As a soldier at Cu Chi told the New York Times,

"The American garrisons on the larger bases are virtually disarmed. The lifers have taken the weapons from us and put them under lock and key." The U.S. army was slowly disarming its own men to prevent the weapons from being aimed at the main enemy: the lifers.

Peace from below ~ search and avoid

Mutiny and fraggings expressed the anger and bitterness that combat soldiers felt at being used as bait to kill Communists. It forced the troops to reassess who was the real enemy.

In a remarkable letter, 40 combat officers wrote to President Nixon in July 1970 to advise him that

"the military, the leadership of this country
~ are perceived by many soldiers
to be almost as much our enemy
as the VC and the NVA."

After the 1970 invasion of Cambodia enlarged the war, fury and the demoralizing realization that nothing could stop the warmongers swept both the antiwar movement and the troops. The most popular helmet logo became "UUUU," which meant "the unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary, for the ungrateful." Peace, if it were to come, would have to be made by the troops themselves, instituted by an unofficial troop withdrawal ending search-and-destroy missions.

The form this peace from below took came to be called "search and avoid," or "search and evade." It became so extensive that "search and evade (meaning tacit avoidance of combat by units in the field) is now virtually a principle of war, vividly expressed by the GI phrase, 'CYA' (cover your ass) and get home!"

In search and avoid, patrols sent out into the field deliberately eluded potential clashes with the NLF. Night patrols, the most dangerous, would halt and take up positions a few yards beyond the defense perimeter, where the NLF would never come. By skirting potential conflicts, they hoped to make it clear to the NLF that their unit had established its own peace treaty.

Another frequent search-and-avoid tactic was to leave base camp, secure a safe area in the jungle and set up a perimeter-defense system in which to hole up for the time allotted for the mission.

"Some units even took enemy weapons with them when they went out on such search-and-avoid missions so that upon return they could report a firefight and demonstrate evidence of enemy casualties for the body-count figures required by higher headquarters."

The army was forced to accommodate what began to be called "the grunts' cease-fire." An American soldier from Cu Chi, quoted in the New York Times, said,

"They have set up separate companies for men who refuse to go out into the field. It is no big thing to refuse to go. If a man is ordered to go to such and such a place, he no longer goes through the hassle of refusing; he just packs his shirt and goes to visit some buddies at another base camp."

An observer at Pace, near the Cambodian front where a unilateral truce was widely enforced, reported, "The men agreed and passed the word to other platoons: nobody fires unless fired upon. As of about 1100 hours on October 10,1971, the men of Bravo Company, 11/12 First Cav Division, declared their own private cease-fire with the North Vietnamese."

The NLF responded to the new situation. People's Press, a GI paper, in its June 1971 issue claimed that NLF and NVA units were ordered not to open hostilities against U.S. troops wearing red bandanas or peace signs, unless first fired upon.

Two months later, the first Vietnam veteran to visit Hanoi was given a copy of "an order to North Vietnamese troops not to shoot U.S. soldiers wearing antiwar symbols or carrying their rifles pointed down." He reports its impact on "convincing me that I was on the side of the Vietnamese now."

Colonel Heinl reported this:

That 'search-and-evade' has not gone unnoticed by the enemy is underscored by the Viet Cong delegation's recent statement at the Paris Peace Talks that Communist units in Indochina have been ordered not to engage American units which do not molest them. The same statement boasted--not without foundation in fact--that American defectors are in the VC ranks.

Some officers joined, or led their men, in the unofficial cease-fire from below. A U.S. army colonel claimed:

I had influence over an entire province.
I put my men to work helping with the harvest.
They put up buildings.
Once the NVA understood what I was doing, they eased up.
I'm talking to you about a de facto truce, you understand.
The war stopped in most of the province.
It's the kind of history that doesn't get recorded.
Few people even know it happened,
and no one will ever admit that it happened.

Search and avoid, mutiny and fraggings were a brilliant success. Two years into the soldiers' upsurge, in 1970, the number of U.S. combat deaths were down by more than 70 percent (to 3,946) from the 1968 high of more than 14,000.

The revolt of the soldiers in order to survive and not to allow themselves to be victims could only succeed by a struggle prepared to use any means necessary to achieve peace from below.

The army revolt
had all of the strengths and weaknesses
of the 1960s radicalization
of which it was a part.
It was a courageous mass struggle
from below.
It relied upon no one but itself to win its battles.

The only organizing tools were the underground GI newspapers. But newspapers became a substitute for organization.

The hidden history of the 1960s proves that the American army can be split. But that requires the long, slow patient work of explanation, of education, of organization, and of agitation and action. The Vietnam revolt shows how rank-and-file soldiers can rise to the task.

Source: http://www.isreview.org/issues/09/soldiers_revolt.shtml

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The Fragging of American Officers: Historic Problems and Future Planning