Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In U.S. War On Iraq "1,173,743"
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 3,966
Cost of U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq $496,058,746,587 |
Thursday, February 21, 2008
WAR CASUALTIES YTD
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
PBS EXPOSES PAST OF 3 WHITE ENCLAVES
PBS's 'Banished' Exposes the Tainted Past of Three White Enclaves
In Areas That Expelled Blacks a Century Ago, Willful Blindness -- and Hope
By Ellen Maguire
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 19, 2008; Page C02
"I don't hate white people," says Marco Williams, director of the documentary "Banished," which examines three Southern towns where African American citizens were violently expelled more than a century ago. "But it's not exactly easy to sit across from a Ku Klux Klan member and discuss cross burning."
Williams, who calls his filmmaking a "personal mission," visits the nearly all-white towns, calmly asking uncomfortable questions ("Where did you think the black people had gone?"). He shows old newspaper photographs of lynchings and watches quietly as the current citizens, and some descendants of the banished, confront their difficult history to varying degrees.
His goal in making the film (airing tonight on MPT)? To find a steppingstone to reconciliation.
Harrison, Ark., which bills itself as one of the "Best Small Towns in America," was the site of an expulsion in 1905. Today, Thomas Robb, 61, the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, makes his home nearby.
In the film, Williams listens as Robb defends cross burning as "cross lighting, an old Scottish tradition." Bob Scott, a retiree, says he moved to Harrison for the "lack of blacks." And Layne Wheeler, of the Harrison Chamber of Commerce, deems the Confederate flag flying outside her office window a harmless nod to history.
"My role playing helped reveal the idiocy or hypocrisy of a situation," Williams says.
Why, though, would the citizens of Harrison speak so candidly to Williams? "I make a habit of never lying, ever," Scott, 80, says by phone from Arkansas.
Wheeler, 47, believes it is vital to acknowledge her town's past. She says Williams depicted Harrison fairly, although she downplays the influence of Robb. And she is quick to mention that the flag has been changed to "a different version of the Confederate flag, not the symbol of the hate groups" -- and that a six-year-old community task force on race relations is developing a driving tour of the former African American neighborhood.
For his part, Robb, who compares a Klan hood to a businessman's tie ("It's just tradition," he says), believes the film is "an attempt by an elitist crowd" to force integration on Harrison and "to create white guilt."
"I am not responsible for the acts of my forefathers, good or bad," he says, adding that someone told him "we'll probably get a lot of new membership."
In another segment, one that Williams believes typifies "the complexity of the problems between blacks and whites," he follows two brothers, James and Charles Brown, descendants of a family banished from Pierce City, Mo., in 1901, as they navigate a bureaucratic maze while attempting to exhume their great-grandfather's body from an unmarked grave -- and only afterward request that the town pay their expenses. (Williams also visits Forsyth County in Georgia.)
"Whites are caught up in process," Williams says, "and blacks don't trust whites. Both sides are injured and confused."
"Banished" was inspired by the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elliot Jaspin, who describes "an archipelago of white or virtually all-white counties along the Mason-Dixon Line and into the Midwest." The film raises the issue of reparations for the descendants of the banished, whose forefathers often lost their homes and possessions.
"Unlike reparations for slavery, land is something we can all relate to," Williams says. "It's the crux of so many battles and wars."
In conversation at his office at New York University, where he teaches documentary film production, Williams suggests that a federal fund, created by a national reparations tax, could help descendants of the banished buy back stolen land at market prices from landowners willing to sell. He praises other kinds of remedy, "an apology, a monument, a scholarship," emphasizing reconciliation and the chance to create reinvigorated, diverse communities.
A similar impulse for reconciliation sparked Williams's career. Williams was a 24-year-old senior at Harvard University when he first heard his father's name. Over the following decade, while Williams studied for two master's degrees at UCLA, he documented his family's four fatherless generations and his own attempts to meet his father. The result: "In Search of Our Fathers," an examination of African American family life that was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.
Williams lives on the Lower East Side, blocks from where he grew up as the only child of a single mother. "The adage that you can't go home again is hardly true," he says.
He has made 10 films about race relations, including "Two Towns of Jasper" (with co-director Whitney Dow, a filmmaking partner), set in Jasper, Tex., the site of a racially motivated murder of an African American in 1998. The documentary -- which was made with two directors, one white and one black, and two crews, one white and one black -- won a Peabody Award in 2004.
The personal cost of his work? "Anger and resentment and hurt that often comes in the guise of great disappointment in white people for being so unconscious," he says, his voice dropping to nearly inaudible. "Why can't white people be proactive about learning about race in America?" he says, elaborating: "True to racial form, when I show the film, blacks say, 'Oh, yes, and what about this town or that town' and whites are shocked."
Yet he is adamant about the necessity to remain compassionate. "To be angry and make demands solely will not invite your enemy to meet you partway."
"To be a black man in America means that I live in a world that is skewed, that is fraught with destructiveness and violence," he says. "As filmmakers, if we turn the mirror 15 or 30 degrees, we can see what's possible."
Banished (90 minutes) airs tonight at 10 on Channel 22.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/18/AR2008021802005.html
BUSH ASSURES AFRICA ON US INTENTIONS
Bush Assures Africa on US Intentions
By JENNIFER LOVEN – 2 hours ago
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — In a country teeming with resources the world covets, President Bush sought Wednesday to soothe African fears about American interests on the continent. He said the U.S. isn't aiming to make Africa into a base for greater military power or a proxy battleground with China.
The desire for Africa's vast raw materials — oil, gold, diamonds, minerals, crops and more — has a long and often violent and exploitative history.
That's especially true in this tropical, sweltering, resource-rich nation on the shores of West Africa, the first place in sub-Saharan Africa that Europeans arrived to trade, first in gold, then slaves, and now the site of a new offshore oil discovery.
So it came as little surprise that Bush's talk about how U.S. generosity has made strides against disease and poverty encountered some skepticism here about the underlying American agenda. Some of those questions arose during Bush's appearance with Ghana's leader at Osu Castle, once a hub of slave-trading and now the seat of government.
With no prompting at a news conference, Bush sought to deal with suspicions about the creation of a new U.S. military command dedicated to Africa.
Nations such as Libya, Nigeria and South Africa have expressed fears that the plan signals an unwanted expansion of American power on the continent or is a cover for protecting Africa's oil on behalf of the U.S. Bush said Ghana's President, John Kufuor, bluntly told him in private that "you're not going to build any bases in Ghana."
"I know there's rumors in Ghana, `All Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here,'" Bush said. "That's baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that's bull. ... I want to dispel the notion that all of a sudden America is bringing all kinds of military to Africa."
Instead, Bush said the new command — unique to the Pentagon's structure — was aimed at more effectively reorganizing U.S. military efforts related to Africa under one hierarchy, and to strengthen African nations' peacekeeping, anti-terror, anti-trafficking and other efforts.
For now, the administration has decided to continue operating AFRICOM out of existing U.S. bases on the continent and directing it from Stuttgart, Germany. Bush said "we haven't made our minds up" about whether to "develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa" as a headquarters. But war-wrecked Liberia is the only African nation that has offered to host it.
Kufuor said Bush's explanation "should put fade to the speculation."
On China, Bush insisted "we can pursue agendas without creating a sense of competition." Still, he made his argument clear: that the United States is the better and kinder partner, because it aims to improve African lives while nations like China focus on commercial opportunity to the exclusion of almost everything else.
In an indirect swipe at Beijing, Bush suggested that African leaders set standards such as the employment of African workers or keeping value-added processes on the continent for countries seeking to do business here — and promised the United States would meet them.
"I just will tell you that our policy is aimed at helping people," the president said.
But there is no question that American economic interests also matter here. On energy alone, a fifth of U.S. oil comes from Nigeria. Ghana's oil discovery last year matters, even if it won't rival that.
Jennifer Cooke, an authority on Africa for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Bush's altered approach to foreign aid — in which assistance is restricted to nations that embrace free markets, fight corruption and invest in education and health — is in part a counter argument to China's formidable presence. Beijing is making investments and forging relationships that have drawn some controversy here, but also enough applause to create concern in Washington.
Ghana was the first African nation to receive a compact from Bush's Millennium Challenge Corporation, one worth $547 million over five years to expand markets for crops.
"China has a major focus on infrastructure and Africans appreciate that very much about the Chinese engagement," Cooke said. "And so this is a way, I think, of trying to do things differently in ways that matter to Africans."
For his part, Kufuor had no criticism for China, saying its products are "quite competitive" and its system bound to turn more democratic.
"I can assure you our nations are not succumbing to dictates and impositions, not from China nor elsewhere," he said. "So as far as we are concerned, so far, it's all right with China."
Bush also came to Ghana — "the front-row, straight-A student of Africa," as White House spokesman Tony Fratto put it — because it is the kind of story he likes to promote. It's a stable, relatively well administered democracy that has largely avoided ethnic clashes and played a busy peacekeeping role on the continent under Kufuor's leadership. Ghana also has cut its still-persistent poverty and is known for press freedoms.
But it is still dependent on foreign aid, including millions each year from the United States. "Mr. President, Africa salutes you for these gestures of goodwill that are impacting the lives of many ordinary persons on the continent for the better," Kufuor said at a lavish dinner for Bush and about 500 other people.
From Ghana, Bush planned to fly to Liberia on Thursday and then back to Washington. He also has visited Benin, Tanzania and Rwanda.
Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jKsz4ko98jM7GN35kK5yGTzHWHQAD8UUCLFO0
e: Edited, added for syntax. Blogman
President Bush meets tribal leaders during a visit to the USAID West Africa Trade Hub, which promotes the production of textiles, handicrafts, and food products for export, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, at the International Trade Fair Center in Accra, Ghana. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
By JENNIFER LOVEN – 2 hours ago
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — In a country teeming with resources the world covets, President Bush sought Wednesday to soothe African fears about American interests on the continent. He said the U.S. isn't aiming to make Africa into a base for greater military power or a proxy battleground with China.
The desire for Africa's vast raw materials — oil, gold, diamonds, minerals, crops and more — has a long and often violent and exploitative history.
That's especially true in this tropical, sweltering, resource-rich nation on the shores of West Africa, the first place in sub-Saharan Africa that Europeans arrived to trade, first in gold, then slaves, and now the site of a new offshore oil discovery.
So it came as little surprise that Bush's talk about how U.S. generosity has made strides against disease and poverty encountered some skepticism here about the underlying American agenda. Some of those questions arose during Bush's appearance with Ghana's leader at Osu Castle, once a hub of slave-trading and now the seat of government.
With no prompting at a news conference, Bush sought to deal with suspicions about the creation of a new U.S. military command dedicated to Africa.
Nations such as Libya, Nigeria and South Africa have expressed fears that the plan signals an unwanted expansion of American power on the continent or is a cover for protecting Africa's oil on behalf of the U.S. Bush said Ghana's President, John Kufuor, bluntly told him in private that "you're not going to build any bases in Ghana."
"I know there's rumors in Ghana, `All Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here,'" Bush said. "That's baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that's bull. ... I want to dispel the notion that all of a sudden America is bringing all kinds of military to Africa."
Instead, Bush said the new command — unique to the Pentagon's structure — was aimed at more effectively reorganizing U.S. military efforts related to Africa under one hierarchy, and to strengthen African nations' peacekeeping, anti-terror, anti-trafficking and other efforts.
For now, the administration has decided to continue operating AFRICOM out of existing U.S. bases on the continent and directing it from Stuttgart, Germany. Bush said "we haven't made our minds up" about whether to "develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa" as a headquarters. But war-wrecked Liberia is the only African nation that has offered to host it.
Kufuor said Bush's explanation "should put fade to the speculation."
On China, Bush insisted "we can pursue agendas without creating a sense of competition." Still, he made his argument clear: that the United States is the better and kinder partner, because it aims to improve African lives while nations like China focus on commercial opportunity to the exclusion of almost everything else.
In an indirect swipe at Beijing, Bush suggested that African leaders set standards such as the employment of African workers or keeping value-added processes on the continent for countries seeking to do business here — and promised the United States would meet them.
"I just will tell you that our policy is aimed at helping people," the president said.
But there is no question that American economic interests also matter here. On energy alone, a fifth of U.S. oil comes from Nigeria. Ghana's oil discovery last year matters, even if it won't rival that.
Jennifer Cooke, an authority on Africa for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Bush's altered approach to foreign aid — in which assistance is restricted to nations that embrace free markets, fight corruption and invest in education and health — is in part a counter argument to China's formidable presence. Beijing is making investments and forging relationships that have drawn some controversy here, but also enough applause to create concern in Washington.
Ghana was the first African nation to receive a compact from Bush's Millennium Challenge Corporation, one worth $547 million over five years to expand markets for crops.
"China has a major focus on infrastructure and Africans appreciate that very much about the Chinese engagement," Cooke said. "And so this is a way, I think, of trying to do things differently in ways that matter to Africans."
For his part, Kufuor had no criticism for China, saying its products are "quite competitive" and its system bound to turn more democratic.
"I can assure you our nations are not succumbing to dictates and impositions, not from China nor elsewhere," he said. "So as far as we are concerned, so far, it's all right with China."
Bush also came to Ghana — "the front-row, straight-A student of Africa," as White House spokesman Tony Fratto put it — because it is the kind of story he likes to promote. It's a stable, relatively well administered democracy that has largely avoided ethnic clashes and played a busy peacekeeping role on the continent under Kufuor's leadership. Ghana also has cut its still-persistent poverty and is known for press freedoms.
But it is still dependent on foreign aid, including millions each year from the United States. "Mr. President, Africa salutes you for these gestures of goodwill that are impacting the lives of many ordinary persons on the continent for the better," Kufuor said at a lavish dinner for Bush and about 500 other people.
From Ghana, Bush planned to fly to Liberia on Thursday and then back to Washington. He also has visited Benin, Tanzania and Rwanda.
Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jKsz4ko98jM7GN35kK5yGTzHWHQAD8UUCLFO0
e: Edited, added for syntax. Blogman
LOOK UP--IT'S FEBRUARY 20, 2008
What do the Space Shuttle 'Atlantis'; A falling Spy Satellite; A Lunar Eclipse; And a Full Moon have in Common? They all coincide today, February 20, 2008. The Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down this morning, shorly after 9 AM @ Cape Canaveral; The defunct Spy Satellite that is falling towards Earth is due to be shot down by the U.S. Navy tonight, when it makes its orbit over Hawaii; The Moon and The Earth (nteraction between the two and The Sun) will produce a Lunar Eclipse this evening at about 10 PM; Lastly, tonight we have a Full Moon.
How about all these events converging into 24 hours? It's impressive, isn't it?
Arsenio.
KGB CHIEF CALLS HOME HOMELAND SECURITY
Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeni Primakov (left) and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright after signing a protocol to START II in New York on 26 September.
(Reuters 44Kb)
KGB Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 21, 2005
“Security and liberty go hand-in-hand. Members of Congress, like too many Americans, don’t understand that society with no constraints on its government cannot be secure. History proves that societies crumble when governments become more powerful than the people and private institutions.” [1]
--Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)
Why would Homeland Security hire former Stasi chief Markus Wolfe and former head of the KGB General Yevgeni Primakov?
Is this part of the Bush anti-terror strategy? After all, Wolfe is the man who is credited with building up the feared East German secret police that was responsible for the disappearance and deaths of thousands of citizens. And, Primakov’s record is not any better. As skipper of the KGB he was driving force behind the machinery of state terror; a legacy that still has a chilling affect on many Russians.
Now, apparently, they’ve found a new place to hang their hats at Homeland Security. Or have they? Perhaps, the numerous stories on the internet are just fabrications intended to mislead independent research. That’s certainly one possibility. But, consider this; for those who have followed the activities of the current administration (the torture, the deception, the death squads, the destruction of Falluja) stories like this are difficult to discount. As a matter of fact, the hiring of Primakov and Wolfe seems fairly consistent with the long-term goals of the Bush team.
We already know that there’s a power struggle within the government from the number of top agents who have been jettisoned at the CIA. Why not develop a new Security apparatus under the auspices of a proven loyalist like Michael Chertoff? (the new appointee at Homeland Security) That would require the expertise of a couple of old pros who can help-out with the basics and get the machinery of state repression clanking along?
The move is not unprecedented either. As Noam Chomsky points out, in SS officer Klaus Barbie, “The Butcher of Lyon” was employed by the US Army after WW2 to “spy on the French.” [2] Col. Eugene Kolb of Army counterintelligence later admitted that Barbie’s “skills were badly needed…His activities had been directed against the underground French Communist party and the resistance’ who were targeted for repression by the American liberators”. (“What Uncle Sam Really Wants”) Other Nazi leaders were also used in counterintelligence operations in Italy. They were regarded as “specialists in anti-resistance activities.”
Primakov has allegedly been hired to oversee the issuing of federal IDs. Now that the new Intelligence Reform Act has passed, (uniform) federal standards will be required for licenses within two years. All the citizens personal, credit and biometric history will be stored on one small document. No one will drive a car or get on a plane without one. Don’t leave home without it, or else.
The new federal ID will be required in all financial transactions. Details will be electronically transferred to Office of Internal Security (which falls under the authority of Homeland Security), which will keep “threat files” on each citizen. Ultimately, the ID will be used as an “internal passport” (Primakov’s words) so the government can keep tabs on the movements of every citizen; to keep us safe, of course.
Sound Orwellian? This is what our “freedom loving” Congressmen and Senators overwhelmingly supported in the Intelligence Reform Act. Most of its provisions were written nearly a full year earlier as part of Patriot Act 2. It slipped by the media without a whimper of dissent. There’s also plenty of “enhanced powers” for the President; like the ability to incarcerate suspects indefinitely without charges. But, then, George would never abuse that authority, would he?
Apparently, there’s a Patriot Act 3 in the hopper, too. Investigative journalist Al Martin believes that this new addition will be intended to “establish the internal mechanism to coordinate, as an official function of state, a system of informants.”
“System of informants”? The land of the free and the home of the snitches.
This must be where a man with Markus Wolfe’s unique talents fits in. As Stasi king-pin he reportedly groomed an impressive network of moles, finks and stool-pigeons. His professional know-how will probably be soothing balm to the quick-learners at Homeland Security. It’s bon voyage to the enemies of the State.
Of course, all of this could just be more paranoid, conspiratorial claptrap?
After sitting through 45 minutes of President Windy’s delusional ramblings of “global liberation”, that seems rather unlikely. Our national nightmare is grounded in some very real changes in the law, and we already know how far these people will go.
The political remedies to the Bush onslaught are diminishing by the day and the observations of Texas congressman Ron Paul are looking increasingly more prophetic. Paul said, “Those who believe a police-state can’t happen here are poor students of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.”
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.
REFERENCES
Thanks to Al Martins, “Get Ready for the USSA” (United Soviet States of America), Behind the scenes in the Beltway (http://www.almartinraw.com/)
[1] Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) “It Can’t Happen Here”
[2] Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants (Odonian Press, 1992), page 18.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
IDENTITY CARDS 'USELESS FIGHT TERRORISM'
Identity cards 'useless in fight against terrorism'
Last updated at 01:21am on 17th February 2008
Identity cards. According to a leaked EU report, the cards are 'useless in fight against terrorism'
Mass fingerprinting, biometric passports, identity cards and international identity databases will not protect Britain and other European countries from terrorists or criminals.
This startling admission comes in a leaked European Commission report prepared for Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and other EU Home Affairs Ministers.
The report undermines Gordon Brown's claims about the need for controversial new passports and identity cards to protect the country from terror attacks.
It raises new questions about the true purpose of Government databases, which will store intimate details of everyone in Britain, including their picture, fingerprints and confidential personal information.
The EU report, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, says most people behind terror attacks in the UK and Europe were living in the EU legally and so would not be affected by increased security measures.
It says: "None of the policy options contribute markedly to reducing terrorism or serious crime.
July 7th tube bombing: The EU report says most people behind terror attacks in the UK and Europe were living in the UK legally and so would not be affected by increased security measures
"In view of the latest terrorist acts in the area of the EU... the perpetrators have mainly been EU citizens or foreigners residing and living here with official permits."
But it does say that the new technology could save money by using automated checks at borders.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515128&in_page_id=1770
FOURTH QUAKE RATTLES MEXICAN BORDER
Fourth moderate quake in two weeks rattles Mexican border state
MEXICO CITY (AP) A moderate earthquake shook northwestern Mexico near the U.S. border on Tuesday. No major damage or injuries were immediately reported.
The quake struck at about 2:40 p.m. and had a magnitude of 5.0, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. It was centered 15 miles southeast of the border city of Mexicali and about 100 miles east of Tijuana.
Baja California's civil protection office said it was checking for damaged buildings and injured people Tuesday afternoon.
Three other moderate temblors with magnitudes of 5.4, 5.1 and 5.0 have rattled the area in the last two weeks, causing blackouts and temporarily knocking out cell phone service.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors. )
NAKED TRUTH
NAKED TRUTH
The truth and nothing but the truth is very unpopular. Jesus says, I am the truth and if they persecute Me, they will persecute you also. Ever wondered why? Sin is the cause! The apostle Paul as a Pharisee had not known sin even though they were very very strict in everything they did. He learned what sin was by the Ten Commandments (Romans 7:7).
"All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2.Tim.3:12). Notice that it is godly living that provokes the wrath and anger of the ungodly. But what about the State Churches when they persecute? Jesus and His apostles were all persecuted by the State Church! We are to obey civil Authority in all secular matters to keep law and order and followers of Jesus Christ love to do just that. But never when a religious law is concerned. Let me illustrate.
Jesus died for our sins, which are a violation of God's Ten Commands (by the law is the knowledge of sin Rom.3:20), Protestant leader Dr.Martin Luther , Theologian at the Uni of Wittenburg, Germany in 1521 AD protested against the wicked Sales of indulgences into sin, i.e. we allow you to sin if you are financial.
Luther then went on exposing the errors. Together with many other Protestant Reformers they made the Word of our God the only source of truth! What we can't understand is, Lutherans combined again with Rome to persecute the truth on the only biblical form of Baptism as practiced by the Baptist Churches and how Jesus gave us the example. Rome killed with cruel torture while the Protestant Lutherans were more humane with drowning the Protestant Baptists. Sprinkling babies is very unbiblical.
The Bible speaks of a time when the Churches would no longer endure the truth and would turn to fables ( 2.Tim.4:2-4 ) and they would also turn the truth into a lie ( 2.Thess.2:11). For hundreds of years, Protestant Reformers all over the World tried in vain to reform the fallen Motherchurch of Rome.
This falling away was prophesied by the Apostle Paul and happened when the Bishop of Rome was placed on the throne of Caesar. Truth was then adulterated with Paganism and the Ten Commandments changed beyond recognition. Anyone who tried to cling to the truth was terribly butchered and murdered by the Church.
Protestantism did not recover all lost truth and errors of Rome! United on the I.D. of the Anti-Christ, namely papal Rome and the Gospel of righteousness by faith in the atoning blood of God's son Jesus Christ alone without works, was certainly the major progress. but where did they got stumped in the end?
Cunning Demons (see 1.Tim4:1-4) help seducing papal Rome with doctrines of Demons! Jesuit priests interpreted the two great prophetic books of Daniel and the Revelation in such a way to make it believable as early as the 1600's . But God had sealed the book of Daniel until knowledge and travel would be on the increase (Dan.8:26; 12:4) Large sections of the Protestant churches have fallen for this.
The unsealing!
It came with the beginning of scientific and industrial knowledge in the 1800's known now as the great Advent Awakening. The Protestant Baptist Preacher William Miller in America and Edward Irvine in Scotland and England, Bengel in Germany, and Wolff in Asia , independent of each other unlocked the Bible's longest time prophecy of the 2300 days of years found in Daniel 8:14
In Rome's counter-Reformation theology of Daniel, they contradict our Lord who said that the Anti-Christ was still future of his time (see Matthew 24::15 cf.Dan8:13) and say that it was Antiochus Epiphanes II which lived before the time of Christ.
Rome took the liberty to divide the prophecy in Daniel 9 and the many new Bible Translators also have taken the liberty to alter the original 2300 days of years by halving the number to 1150 days. Roman translation even has 2400 days.
I use to work in Canberra Hospital where I daily met with Pastors, Priests and all kind of Clergymen of both Catholic and Protestants. I tried to understand the last book of the Bible. But they all expressed unconcern and I wondered why! I had been brought up in the biggest Christian Church and thought that 800 Millions could not be wrong! But what a rude awakening!
The Vatican Council II allowed me to fellowship with Protestants for the first time. With many other Catholics we started to doubt the infallibility claim of the Pope.
I became baptized into the Church of Christ when shortly after I met a Protestant Seventh Day Adventist Pastor who could explain the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ with ease. Those who rejected the Lord's interpretation of Daniel and the Revelation among Protestants in the 1800's have now the version of Rome only.
God calls all Christians that sleep with dirty politics whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, the daughters of the great Mother Whore (see Revel.17) , which commits adultery with the great man of the earth.
© Copyright 2002-2008 Come2jesus.info All Rights Reserved
Monday, February 18, 2008
TRUTH ABOUT FORUMS CLAIMING TO BE SDA
*ANIMATION*TRUTH OF ABOUT DISCUSSION FORUMS CLAIMING TO BE ADVENTIST!!
The three major discussion forums on the internet that claim to be Adventist have been tested and were defeated on most every major question related to their opposition of Adventist doctrine and Ellen White. Those three discussion forums are:
SdaNet under Steve Timm
Adventist Issues under Tim Veach
Atoday Forums under Greg Billock
All of these forums present as a promotional piece their bright ideas for free thought, and the bulk of the posters in agreement with this claim constantly tell how free thought has liberated them from the errors of Adventism and gave them a desire to demand change from her (as self-contradictory as is their promotion of free thought) whether she wants to change or not.
All of these forums show great tolerance in criticizing Seventh-day Adventism and Ellen White. But all of these forums, except Adventist Issues, demonstrate intolerance if Rome is exposed.
Once in there you will always find posters who claim that they have incontestable proof that Adventism is wrong on many issues. They hold up in reverence the names of Dr. Desmond Ford, Robert Brimsmead and others. These forums--INCLUDING SDANET--have been presented with our findings which clearly demonstrate that the purposes of those demanding change are evil and illegal. The posters of all of these systems always consistently avoid the points that were brought, and instead, moved out to criticize the people who posted the evidence or who directed people to this website. These posters still yet find no problem in claiming that they have answered our points, when they did not even address them.
It wasn't long till we found that these forums were not really created for discussion nor to promote free thought. They were actually constructed with the intent to be cell groups. Don't believe us? Please stay with us, study and see!
These forums are a reliable indicator of what is taking place against Adventism in every quarter. Participation and study of these systems would give a greater awareness of the very little time that we yet have to share out the truth to the world, and it would change our conceptions of how things would finally end in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is not what most of the people think.
All of these forums are dominated by people who are demanding that Adventists give up their views and join with all the other churches in ecumenism. In other words, Roman Catholics--The Roman Catholic Militia (the Jesuits, and possibly members of other orders of the Papacy. Of course, they deny being so). It has been proven that they did not come to talk, but to complement all efforts currently being implemented to force this measure on the church. All of those posters already told those presenting the truth that the leaders of the Adventist Church are going to change it, and that they will get their way. In the process WE HAVE FOUND ADVENTISTS WHO EVEN DEFEND THE CONCEPT VIGOROUSLY TO BE PART OF THE VATICAN MILITIA! SUCH PEOPLE ARE WAITING FOR THEIR TIME AT THE LAST MOMENT WHEN WE THINK THEY WILL VOTE FOR THE RIGHT, TO BETRAY US!
We would like to, in time, demonstrate the evidence of what took place on these forums, as some evidence is already in the Jesuit Dialogues portion of this webpage. Those who brought the incontestable proof of the truth were dismissed from SdaNet and Atoday Forums on charges which were very questionable. You can search Atoday Forums now, and you may find what is stated easily, for it is an open forum where its messages can be viewed by non-members. You would have to join Adventist Issues in order to see what is there.
Therefore, in light of the incontestable discoveries confirming that Adventism is truth, we forbid redicussion against points related to certain topics that have been proven unless unique arguments are presented and discussion on the topic is applied for. The rest of the forums were created to encourage endless debate and argument so long as Adventism responds with the truth. That will not be permitted on our forum. When points are raised, they have to be addressed directly. We don't allow Jesuit tactics on our forum.
That is the major characteristic that classifies points and articles as sealed on our forum: their ability to generate silence in challenges. Through our experiences on forums, we have shown and demonstrated that the arguments presented in favor of Adventism are unconquerable. Enemies to the concept both inside the Adventist Church and out cannot answer our questions, so they fill in the void with noise and insults and accusations in order to deceive onlookers with an imaginary victory in their favor. They cover up this agenda by accusing those who support Adventism of actually doing what they are doing and then tell us we must receive Christ's righteousness in their gospel.
We are therefore requesting that those who write in to tell us how ineffectual this website is to please don't just make vain statements and then duck and hide. Let us make a difference between Christians and Antichristians who work for the Antichrist. Antichristians have no conscience nor shame.
If there is a problem, please state what it is and defend against it instead of ridiculing us and then showing what you are telling us is a better example in proving your points through running. Don't just make a statement, but back up what you say. Life is short, and we do not appreciate having our time wasted by any such emails.
Ted McMillan,
Owner,
Truth of Adventism Defended Egroups Forum
Source: http://tmac1238.www2.50megs.com/Forums.htm
* ANIMATION: Added by Blogman for emphasis!
RELIGION, 'EDUCATION', WAR AND WESTERN...
RELIGION AND SECRET SOCIETIES:
Religion, 'Education', War and Westernisation
by David Icke, Feb 17, 2008
Comment: The purpose of the Jesuit Order is, and has always been, to covertly or overtly force the 'new' variant of Satanic Sun Religion from old Babylon, Christianity, upon the world, while other branches, in conjunction with the Jesuits, are working on destroying Christianity. This is how the Illuminati works; the right hand is doing one thing and the left hand the opposite, but
it all fits with the Great Plan and they achieve what they want by deception and to 'divide and conquer'. Wes Penre, www.illuminati-news.com
Source: http://www.illuminati-news.com/Articles/95.html
Religion, 'Education', War and Westernisation
by David Icke, Feb 17, 2008
Comment: The purpose of the Jesuit Order is, and has always been, to covertly or overtly force the 'new' variant of Satanic Sun Religion from old Babylon, Christianity, upon the world, while other branches, in conjunction with the Jesuits, are working on destroying Christianity. This is how the Illuminati works; the right hand is doing one thing and the left hand the opposite, but
it all fits with the Great Plan and they achieve what they want by deception and to 'divide and conquer'. Wes Penre, www.illuminati-news.com
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I've just returned from an extremely successful speaking trip to Japan and I had some very interesting conversations about the Illuminati and the subjugation of the traditional culture and knowledge of the East.
It reveals once again the familiar blueprint for global conquest spanning so many centuries that is reaching its planned fruition in these early years of the 21st century. What I have found across the world I found in Japan, even down to the original attempts to infiltrate the traditional culture by the Jesuits in the 16th century.
The Jesuit Order is a fascist operation that hides behind the cover of 'Christianity' while actually being an elite secret society within the Illuminati web. There are two hierarchies in all Illuminati organisations - the one the public sees and the one in the shadows with the real power.
So it is, therefore, with the Roman Church, which is just the Church of Babylon relocated. I have detailed at length the way the beliefs, rituals and symbols of the Church of Babylon (now Iraq) were simply recycled under another name when the bloodline cabal settled in Rome. It is no coincidence that the symbol of the Jesuit Order is the Sun.
Logo of the Jesuit Order
The 'front' hierarchy claims to promote Christianity, the religion introduced as the State religion of Rome by the sun worshipper, Caesar Flavius Constantine, or 'Constantine the Great', who imposed the creed that Christians must believe to this day at the Council of Nicea (also Nicaea) in 325AD. It was there that the Christian bishops under Constantine's command resolved the tricky question of who 'Jesus Christ' actually was.
How clever of them. They compiled, amid enormous conflict and bad blood, the Nicene Creed that imposed the beliefs that remain the foundation of Christianity to this day. The Creed included the 'definitive' version of 'Jesus Christ':
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Emperor Constantine, the founder of the official Christian creed who actually worshipped the sun god,
Sol Invictus, and a depiction of the Council of Nicea in what is now Iznik in north west Turkey.
All these long-winded and disappear-up-your-backside descriptions of Jesus and 'his' religion were a bit like today's government legislation which is so often worded in apparent gobbledygook to obscure its real meaning.
In the case of the Nicene Creed, it was to hide the fact that the 'new' Christianity was the old sun god and moon goddess religion of Babylon under another guise. The inner elite knew this, of course - they just didn't want the masses to know.
As with all religions, there is the public face of 'Christianity' in the form of churches and men in long frocks; and the secret inner sanctum that knows it is all a scam and follows the 'pure' Satanic religion of Babylon.
In fact, this controlling force behind Christianity is not a religion at all. It is a network of secret societies that emerged from the perversion of advanced esoteric knowledge taught in the ancient Mystery schools.
The outer congregation of the Roman Church is told to take the Bible literally while insiders know that much of it is the symbolic representation of esoteric doctrines from Babylon and elsewhere. This is as true with Judaism in the Old Testament as with Christianity in the New.
In the Roman Church we can see the outer and inner hierarchies very clearly. One is headed by the Pope, currently the former Nazi youth member, Benedict XVI, and the army of archbishops, bishops and priests throughout the world. Their job is to sell the official version of Roman Catholicism and many do this while actually believing what they say to be true.
The secret inner sanctum is headed by the Jesuits and their associated groupings like Opus Dei, the Knights Templar and the Knights of Malta. These are all secret societies hiding behind the cover of Christianity and the most powerful of them is the Society of Jesus - the Jesuits.
The two Popes: the official one, Joseph Ratzinger, and the so-called 'Black Pope', the new head of the Jesuit Order,
Father Adolfo Nicolas, who has spent half his career in Japan.
The Jesuits have successfully operated under the radar for centuries and the full extent of their manipulation across the world in areas like religion, politics, banking, business, media and the military has only emerged more recently, indeed it is still emerging.
The Society of Jesus was created by Spanish aristocracy in the form of Ignatius Loyola, who was born at the Castle of Loyola in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa in Spain on Christmas Eve 1491. He and his associates founded the Jesuit Order in 1537 and it was given papal approval in 1540. They called themselves 'Los Alumbrados', or the 'Illuminated Ones'.
It was from the start a secret society answering to the Illuminati and working to advance the goal of global domination. The Roman Church was just its vehicle and its cover, as it remains today, and in truth the Jesuit Order is a secret network that manipulates across the vast swathe of society and not just through religion.
The Jesuits were at the forefront of the colonisation of the world. The Zulu shaman, Credo Mutwa, talks often about the role played by Jesuits in destroying the ancient knowledge and ways of life in Africa. They began to appear in the years before the mass influx into Africa from Europe and they brought the Christian cross that would soon become familiar to the African peoples as their tribal culture was dismantled in the name of 'Jesus' and the British Empire.
The Jesuits are remembered in many legends as the one-legged or 'monopod' people because, in their long habits, it sometimes appeared that they had only one leg. They would target the key people in the tribal hierarchy and use their knowledge of black magic to make them think they were gods.
Once they had 'converted' the chiefs and their families the rest of the tribe would easily follow and this was the technique they used throughout Africa. It was clearly a centrally-agreed blueprint because, as I learned this week, they did exactly the same in Japan.
St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552)
One of Ignatius Loyola's closest friends and a fellow founder of the Jesuits was a guy called Francis Xavier, who, like Loyola, was Spanish aristocracy. The two were room-mates at college in Paris and in the wake of the formation of the Jesuit Order Xavier travelled widely to 'spread the Christianity message'.
Xavier was chosen by Loyola to be the Jesuit head of missions to Asia and in 1542 he left his base in Portugal and headed for India, Malaysia and the Spice Islands before arriving in Japan on August 15th 1549. He had written in a letter to Loyola:
'I have learnt from good authorities that there is a country near China called Japan, the inhabitants of which are all heathen, quite untouched by Muslims or Jews, and very eager to learn what they do not know both in things divine and things natural, I have determined to go thither as soon as I can ...'
It was the start of the Illuminati's effort to seize control of Japan and absorb its uniqueness into the enslaving uniformity that would later be called 'Westernisation'. The plan would take many centuries to complete, but they are now virtually there.
Francis, sorry Saint Francis, Xavier worked for both the Jesuits and the Portuguese royal family, for whom he was a 'political emissary'. Like all Illuminati operatives he served many players in the same agenda because the Illuminati attack their targets on many fronts to destabilise and divide and rule. For example, along with Christianity the Portuguese most famously introduced gunpowder to Japan.
Xavier was once again remarkably successful in converting tens of thousands of Japanese to Christianity, according to Ryu Ohta, a long-time researcher into the Illuminati agenda to conquer Japan. The blueprint was the same - employing the knowledge of black magic and mind control to target the 'ruling class' and 'opinion formers', who would then influence the population. Xavier and the Jesuits would also move onto China where he died in 1552.
Japan and China were, and still are to a much lesser extent today, vast libraries of ancient knowledge that the Illuminati wish to destroy. Christianity and 'westernisation' have been two of their major weapons in pursuit of this and the Jesuit Order has been a major player in the covert war on Japan - firstly with the early Christian missionaries like Xavier and then through the trading companies, corporations and wars that would follow.
The Japanese leader, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, became alarmed at how the Christian missionaries and their fellow travellers, the foreign traders, were so aggressive and intolerant towards traditional Japanese beliefs and institutions and his concern was intensified as he saw how the same combination was colonising country after country in the name of Christianity.
In 1587 he issued an edict to expel the Jesuits and other missionaries and Christianity was further suppressed in Japan during the Edo Period from 1603 when the country became largely isolated from the rest of the world, except for occasional trade with the Dutch, and traditional Japan prevailed.
But the Jesuits and the Illuminati would be back and in the 1850s the United States sent Matthew Calbraith Perry and a fleet of naval ships to end some 200 years of Japanese self-sufficiency and isolation. Perry demanded on threat of severe consequences that Japan open its borders to American trade and from that time the floodgates did swing.
Perry: gunboat diplomacy
The Japanese signed the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31st, 1854 and for Japan it was a catastrophe. The influx of foreign money undermined the Japanese currency and caused serious inflation. The Japanese system of government during the isolation came to an end and a Western puppet government replaced it - the usual story all over the world.
Britain, Russia, France and the Netherlands also signed 'unequal treaties' with Japan which gave these countries far more rights than the Japanese (see 'free trade' to this day) and the United States established an embassy that still has enormous influence on the political and financial policies of Japan. If the people knew just how much there would be a revolution.
As you would expect, the Illuminati 'cultural' invasion of Japan, as with China, involved the notorious Scottish drug-running operation called Jardine Matheson, which has appeared in my books many times. In 1859, the assault on traditional Japan was significantly advanced by the Jardine Matheson agent, Thomas Blake Glover.
Thomas Blake Glover
Glover would make a fortune selling arms to both sides in Japanese clan wars and he was highly influential in encouraging the westernisation of Japan. Appropriately, he had a home built in Nagasaki and it was Japan's first western-style building.
Glover, in league with Jardine Matheson and other Illuminati operatives, manipulated Japan into following the western model of industrialisation and military conquest, and members of the leading Japanese families were sent to the West for their education and indoctrination, not least to Oxford University, the Illuminati's prime centre for 'educational' indoctrination anywhere on earth. As the University's website says:
'Oxford welcomed its first Japanese students in the 19th century. Tomotsune Iwakura, the third son of Tomomi Iwakura, then Minister of the Right in Japan, was one of Oxford's first Japanese students. He started at Balliol College, Oxford in 1873, and was followed by several more sons of the Japanese elite.
We have educated daughters too: Tsuda Umeko, founder of Japan's first private women's school of higher education, studied at St Hilda's College, Oxford. The university has enjoyed close links with the Japanese Imperial Family, dating to the 1920s, when his Imperial Highness Prince Chichibu studied at Oxford. More recently, Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako studied here.'
What Francis Xavier and the original Jesuits had done on a much smaller scale by targeting the minds of the ruling class to influence the population was now being achieved on a massive scale and traditional Japan was rapidly usurped by the imposition of the Illuminati 'culture', better known Westernisation. As Oxford University crows:
'We have strong and numerous collaborative links with a range of Japanese universities, business, and non-profit organisations, in disciplines ranging from anthropology and history to physics and medicine.'
Oh, I bet you do.
In the 20th century the takeover was complete with Japan's one-time self sufficiency replaced by dependence on the merciless world 'trading' system and the two atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We were told that this had to be done to end the war, but the real reason was twofold:
1.) To provide horrific evidence of atomic devastation to increase the potential for fear and manipulation in the 'Cold War' that had long been planned to follow World War Two.
2.) To destroy Japan as in any way an independent country and allow the acquisition of its economy and resources for a few cents on the dollar.
Nagasaki: the day the 'West' conquered Japan
There were a few times last week when I saw panoramic views across Tokyo and it is a stunning sight. Even in American cities the skyscraper, high-rise landscape occupies a relatively small area, but in Tokyo it continues from horizon to horizon. In many ways Japan 'out-Wests' the 'West' in the way its traditional culture is being squeezed to the margins in the face of advertising hoardings and concrete uniformity.
Skyscrapers
There was a moment on the way to the airport when I saw a traditional and beautiful Japanese building in among a street of straight lines and concrete blocks. The contrast took me aback as I observed the real estate equivalent of the soul and the soulless.
It captured for me in that fleeting moment what the Illuminati have done to this planet and its once glorious diversity. It has taken a paradise and made it a hole, a place where the very 'system' demands that we dismantle the planet ever-quicker to ensure economic survival, let alone 'success'.
There are people in asylums for far less.
Here is the once-magical, unique land of Japan drowning in consumption and covering its face from the pollution that its economic 'miracle' spews out by the minute. That is what the illusions peddled by the Illuminati agents in government and commerce have done to our planet. The world is becoming a soulless mono-'culture' because it has been created and imposed by soulless maniacs.
Pollute mask
The Jesuits and their associated secret societies have done the same in China, another land of abundant knowledge and wisdom that has been brought to heel through the Opium Wars (involving Jardine Matheson again), the engineered 'communist' revolution of the vicious Freemason Chairman Mao, and a 'westernisation' now so advanced that China is becoming the planet's biggest resource consumer and polluter.
But the prime aim of the war against the East is not a war on nature, though that is a terrible legacy. It is a war on knowledge, just as it has been in Africa, the Americas and elsewhere. The modus operandi is this: Suppress the sources of ancient wisdom about the nature of reality and then sell a fake version of 'life' through your religions, 'science' and media to enslave the population in the five-senses.
Thank-goodness that, as I saw in Japan last week, there are many hearts and minds beginning to stir again and remembering who they are, and many souls who simply refuse to be bowed in the face of the insanity they see all around them.
Source: David Icke's Newsletter, Feb 17, 2008
This page may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Source: http://www.illuminati-news.com/Articles/95.html
NO MORE BULL!
"NO MORE BULL!
The Mad Cowboy Targets America's Worst Enemy: Our Diet"
by Howard Lyman
with Glen Merzer & Joanna Samorow-Merzer
"Howard Lyman, who told the story of his transition from cattle rancher to vegetarian in Mad Cowboy, exposes the flimsy lies sustaining the meat industry in this new volume. With an update on the Mad Cow threat, an eye-opening discussion of the link between Alzheimer's and meat consumption, and a raucus dissection of the folly of high-protein diets, No More Bull! makes the case for a plant-based diet as clearly and powerfully as it's ever been made. Featuring over 100 vegan recipes from Howard's friends, cookbook authors, award-winning chefs, and easy-to-follow tips for those transitioning to a vegan or plant-based diet, No More Bull! could be the book that changes your life, or the life of someone you love."
HARRIET TUBMAN'S LIFE
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Harriet Tubman's life was a monument to courage and determination that continues to stand out in American history. Born into slavery in Maryland, Harriet Tubman freed herself, and played a major role in freeing the remaining millions. After the Civil War, she joined her family in Auburn, NY, where she founded the Harriet Tubman Home. Click here to learn more about:
Tubman in Slavery Tubman's Escape
Underground Railroad Auburn
Harriet Tubman's Life in Slavery
Harriet Ross was born into slavery in 1819 or 1820, in Dorchester County, Maryland. Given the names of her two parents, both held in slavery, she was of purely African ancestry. She was raised under harsh conditions, and subjected to whippings even as a small child. At the age of 12 she was seriously injured by a blow to the head, inflicted by a white overseer for refusing to assist in tying up a man who had attempted escape.
At the age of 25, she married John Tubman, a free African American. Five years later, fearing she would be sold South, she made her escape.
Her Escape to Freedom in Canada
Tubman was given a piece of paper by a white neighbor with two names, and told how to find the first house on her path to freedom. At the first house she was put into a wagon, covered with a sack, and driven to her next destination. Following the route to Pennsylvania, she initially settled in Philadelphia, where she met William Still, the Philadelphia Stationmaster on the Underground Railroad. With the assistance of Still, and other members of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, she learned about the workings of the UGRR.
In 1851 she began relocating members of her family to St. Catharines, (Ontario) Canada West. North Street in St. Catharines remained her base of operations until 1857. While there she worked at various activities to save to finance her activities as a Conductor on the UGRR, and attended the Salem Chapel BME Church on Geneva Street.
Her Role in the Underground Railroad
After freeing herself from slavery, Harriet Tubman returned to Maryland to rescue other members of her family. In all she is believed to have conducted approximately 300 persons to freedom in the North. The tales of her exploits reveal her highly spiritual nature, as well as a grim determination to protect her charges and those who aided them. She always expressed confidence that God would aid her efforts, and threatened to shoot any of her charges who thought to turn back.
When William Still published The Underground Railroad in 1871, he included a description of Harriet Tubman and her work. The section of Still's book captioned below begins with a letter from Thomas Garret, the Stationmaster of Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington and Philadelphia were on the major route followed by Tubman, and by hundreds of others who escaped from slavery in Maryland. For this reason, Still was in a position to speak from his own firsthand knowledge of Tubman's work:
WILMINGTON, 12 mo. 29th, 1854
Esteemed Friend, J. Miller McKim: - We made arrangements last night, and sent away Harriet Tubman, with six men and one woman to Allen Agnew's, to be forwarded across the country to the city. Harriet, and one of the men had worn the shoes off their feet, and I gave them two dollars to help fit them out, and directed a carriage to be hired at my expense, to take them out, but do not yet know the expense....
THOMAS GARRET
Harriet Tubman had been their "Moses," but not in the sense that Andrew Johnson was the "Moses of the colored people." She had faithfully gone down into Egypt, and had delivered these six bondmen by her own heroism. Harriet was a woman of no pretensions, indeed, a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found among the most unfortunate-looking farm hands of the South. Yet, in point of courage, shrewdness and disinterested exertions to rescue her fellow-men, by making personal visits to Maryland among the slaves, she was without her equal.
Her success was wonderful. Time and again she made successful visits to Maryland on the Underground Rail Road, and would be absent for weeks at a time, running daily risks while making preparations for herself and her passengers. Great fears were entertained for her safety, but she seemed wholly devoid of personal fear. The idea of being captured by slave-hunters or slave-holders, seemed never to enter her mind. She was apparently proof against all adversaries. While she thus maintained utter personal indifference, she was much more watchful with regard to those she was piloting. Half of her time, she had the appearance of one asleep, and would actually sit down by the road-side and go fast asleep* when on her errands of mercy through the South, yet, she would not suffer one of her party to whimper once, about "giving out and going back," however wearied they might be by the hard travel day and night. She had a very short and pointed rule or law of her own, which implied death to any who talked of giving out and going back. Thus, in an emergency she would give all to understand that "times were very critical and therefore no foolishness would be indulged in on the road." That several who were rather weak-kneed and faint-hearted were greatly invigorated by Harriet's blunt and positive manner and threat of extreme measures, there could be no doubt.
After having once enlisted, "They had to go through ordie." Of course Harriet was supreme, and her followers generally had full faith in her, and would back up any word she might utter. So when she said to them that "a live runaway could do great harm by going back, but that a dead one could tell no secrets," she was sure to have obedience. Therefore, none had to die as traitors on the "middle passage." It is obvious enough, however, that her success in going into Maryland as she did, was attributable to her adventurous spirit and utter disregard of consequences. Her like it is probable was never known before or since.
On the road between Syracuse and Rochester, would be found a number of sympathetic Quakers and other abolitionists settled at Auburn. Here also was the home of US Senator and former New York State Governor William H. Seward. Sometime in the mid-1850s, Tubman met Seward and his wife Frances. Mrs. Seward provided a home for Tubman's favorite niece, Margaret, after Tubman helped her to escape from Maryland. In 1857, the Sewards provided a home for Tubman, to which she relocated her parents from St. Catharines. This home was later sold to her for a small sum, and became her base of operations when she was not on the road aiding fugitives from slavery, and speaking in support of the cause.
Tubman was closely associated with Abolitionist John Brown, and was well acquainted with the other Upstate abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, Jermain Loguen, and Gerrit Smith.She worked closely with Brown, and reportedly missed the raid on Harper's Ferry only because of illness.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, Tubman served as a soldier, spy, and a nurse, for a time serving at Fortress Monroe, where Jefferson Davis would later be imprisoned. While guiding a group of black soldiers in South Carolina, she met Nelson Davis, who was ten years her junior. Denied payment for her wartime service, Tubman was forced, after a bruising fight, to ride in a baggage car on her return to Auburn.
* note: Harriet Tubman reportedly suffered narcolepsy as a result of the head injury she sustained as a child.
Her Life In Auburn, NewYork
Only twelve miles from Seneca Falls, Tubman helped Auburn to remain a center of activity in support of women's rights. With her home literally down the road, Tubman remained in contact with her friends, William and Frances Seward. In 1908, she built the wooden structure that served as her home for the aged and indigent. Here she worked, and herself was cared for in the period before her death in 1913.
 | The Harriet Tubman Home 180 South Street Auburn,NY 13201 (315) 252-2081 |
Saturday, February 16, 2008
REMEMBER THE MAINE!
Remember the Maine!
U.S.S. Maine, circa 1897.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920
Wreck of the U.S.S. Maine,
William Henry Jackson, photographer, circa 1900.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920
On February 15, 1898, an explosion of unknown origin sank the battleship U.S.S. Maine in the Havana, Cuba harbor, killing 266 of the 354 crew members. The sinking of the Maine incited United States passions against Spain, eventually leading to a naval blockade of Cuba and a declaration of war.
Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after riots broke out in Havana in January. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry reported on March 28 that the ship, one of the first American battleships and built at a cost of more than two million dollars, had been blown up by a mine without laying blame on any person or nation in particular, but public opinion in the United States blamed the Spanish military occupying Cuba anyway. Subsequent diplomatic communications failed to resolve the matter, leading to the start of the Spanish-American War by the end of April.
Burial of the "Maine" Victims, March 27, 1898.
The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures
![[photo]](http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/ship1.jpg){kind=link}
The Spanish-American War is notable as the first U.S. war documented by the motion picture camera. The Edison Manufacturing Company, for example, sent cameraman William Paley to Key West, Florida, where he filmed Burial of the "Maine" Victims on March 27, 1898. In late March he also filmed the Wreck of the Battleship "Maine" in the Havana harbor, and in late April and early May of that year he filmed, in Florida, military preparations for the war. A special "War Extra," issued on May 20, 1898, as a supplement to the Edison Manufacturing Company catalog, promised that these motion pictures "would be sure to satisfy the craving of the general public for absolutely true and accurate details regarding the movements of the United States Army getting ready for the invasion of Cuba."
- In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Maine, the Library of Congress released the American Memory collection The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures. For an overview of the films in this collection, with essays offering an historical context, view the special presentation The Motion Picture Camera Goes to War. In addition, browse the Topical Title List of motion pictures to follow the progression of the war.
- Learn more about the war by viewing The World of 1898, a presentation of the Library of Congress Hispanic Division. For additional war images, see the Today in History features on the arrival of the first U.S. Marines at Guantánamo Bay on June 10, 1898, the Battle of San Juan Hill on July 1, and the October 18 raising of the U.S. flag in Puerto Rico.
- To find additional images of the ill-fated battleship and its crew, search on Maine Battleship in Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920 and Taking the Long View, 1851-1991. This search will retrieve such artifacts as the panoramic photograph of the thirteenth anniversary of the sinking of the Maine. For more photographs, search on Spanish American War, 1898 in Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920.
ARROYO TARGET OF PLOT: OFFICIALS
Officials: Arroyo Target of Plot
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In this photo released by the Presidential Close-in Photographers Office, PCPO, Malacanang Palace in Manila, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo delivers a keynote speech at the Golden Alumni Homecoming celebration of the Philippine College of Criminology Alumni Association Inc. (PCCRAAI) at a hotel in Manila on Thursday Feb.14, 2008. The Philippine government has uncovered an alleged plot by al-Qaida-linked militants to assassinate Arroyo, officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/Presidential Close-in Photographers Office, Avito Dalan) * MANDATORY CREDIT ** | ||
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Militants linked to al-Qaida plotted to assassinate the Philippine president and bomb foreign embassies, officials said Thursday.
Military chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said the assassination plot allegedly was hatched by the extremist Abu Sayyaf group and its Indonesia-based ally, Jemaah Islamiyah.
Opposition groups dismissed the allegation as government scare tactics to prevent people from joining protests Friday to demand President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's resignation.
Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, head of the Presidential Security Group, said police uncovered the plot last week. "It's not only the president who is the target, but also other people ... and embassies," he said without offering specifics.
The alleged plot was also to involve a sniper shooting the president, Esperon said.
A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said officials there were aware of media reports that foreign embassies had been targeted but would not comment further. She spoke on condition of anonymity in line with policy.
The officials did not specify when the attacks were expected to occur. But Prestoza said Arroyo's attendance at an alumni homecoming of the Philippine Military Academy on Saturday in northern Baguio city has been canceled and the rest of her schedule was "under assessment."
Earlier, the military had announced that security forces would go on high alert over an alleged communist rebel plan to infiltrate the protests.
"Obviously this is a very desperate tactic to create an atmosphere of terror and scare people to prevent them from joining the protest actions tomorrow," said Renato Reyes, secretary general of left-wing Bayan, one of the protest organizers.
Esperon denied the government revealed the alleged plot to discourage participation in the planned protest.
"We are simply acting as security forces and so we have deemed it necessary that we come out in the open about our assessment of the situation," Esperon said.
A police counterterrorism officer said a captured member of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf told investigators late last year that his comrades, working with Jemaah Islamiyah and Manila-based Filipino Islamic converts, plotted a bomb attack in Baguio against unspecified targets that was believed to be scheduled for December.
Philippine security officials speculated that the targets could include Arroyo, who did not spend Christmas Eve with her family in the mountain resort city as she had traditionally done, or U.S. diplomats, who have a consulate there, said the officer. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The police officer, however, said investigators failed to find other evidence that would back up the Abu Sayyaf member's claim. No bomb attack occurred in Baguio in December.
The Abu Sayyaf and its allies have been blamed for numerous kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, including a blast that triggered a fire that killed 116 people on a ferry in Manila Bay in February 2004.
The protest rally against Arroyo is set for Friday in Manila's financial district, Makati. Protesters are demanding the resignation of Arroyo and other officials over corruption allegations.
Political tensions intensified last week when former government consultant Rodolfo Lozada Jr. linked an ex-elections chief and Arroyo's husband to an allegedly overpriced $330 million broadband contract, which the president has since canceled.
Both men have denied the allegations, and Arroyo has not spoken directly about her husband's alleged involvement.
Arroyo, a staunch U.S. ally plagued by long-running Islamic and communist insurgencies, has fended off three impeachment bids and four coup plots since taking over in the country's second "people power" revolt in 2001. She has two years left in her term.
Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hM95K4MlwwkTJ3Jg_X85cYb73GiwD8UQ6K1O0
VATICAN TREASURES ARRIVE IN FEBRUARY
Vatican treasures arrive in February
The first U.S. stop for 200 works will be a St. Petersburg museum.
By JACOB H. FRIES, Times Staff Writer
Published November 16, 2007
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[Handout] This papal tiara was shown in the 2003 Fort Lauderdale exhibit. The list of items for the new show has not been determined. |
The exhibit, which includes 200 works, is stopping in two other U.S. cities, but St. Petersburg has the honor of showing it first, said Kathy Oathout, the museum's executive director. The show, dubbed "Vatican Splendors from Saint Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museums and Swiss Guard," will runFeb. 9 to May 11.
"We're told it's the largest collection of art, documents and historically significant objects from the Vatican ever to tour North America," Oathout said. "To be selected as the first stop is very special."
The list of specific works included in the exhibit is still being finalized. Based on similar shows in other cities, organizers expect it will draw a minimum of 150,000 people to the museum, located at 244 Second Ave. N in downtown. Museum officials plan to make a formal announcement about the exhibit later this month when tickets go on sale. The exact date for the start of ticket sales has not been set.
Tickets will cost $20 for adults, $17 for seniors, $15 for those in the military, $13 for children 6-12. Children under 6 can enter free.
"It could end up being the single best Florida exhibit in the new year," said Carl Kuttler, president of St. Petersburg College, which hosts the museum on its downtown campus. "It just adds to the museum's history of bringing great exhibits here."
The exhibit, covering 8,500 square feet of the museum, will display some objects and art in a contextual environment, Oathout said.
For example, some works may be displayed in a recreation of St. Peter's tomb.
In 2003, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art hosted a collection of Vatican treasures called "Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Pope."
Among the 350 pieces were the oldest known representation of Jesus and the papal tiara. The blockbluster exhibit was seen by more than 150,000 people.
"It's not a Catholic event, per se," said Tim Hancock, chairman of the Florida International Museum's board.
"The Vatican, it's like the Smithsonian. They have so many things. They don't let their treasures out very often. Usually one has to travel to Rome or the Vatican to see this. So when they put them out on display, it's quite an ordeal."
Jacob H. Fries can be reached at jfries@sptimes.com or 727 893-8872.
[Last modified November 15, 2007, 23:57:07]
P.S. Bolds and Highlight added for emphasis. Blogman
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