Anaheim Police Shoot & Use Dogs On Women & Children

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When They Come For Your Guns What Will You Do?

"When they come for my gun, they will have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands," is a common refrain I often hear from the Neo-Cons when there is a threat, credible or otherwise, that the US government is going to take their firearms. 

And, when I hear this crazy talk, I agree with them openly.  "You are right.  They will pry your gun from your cold dead hands," which I often follow with the question, "And where will that leave you except face down in a pool of your own blood the middle of the street, just another dead fool resisting the State?"

This is not a question they are comfortable with, if only because the intent of their saber-rattling was to imply they would fight to keep their weapons, and win.

Nice fantasy. It’s not happening.

If the federal government decides to disarm the public, and one of these (see photo below) rolls down your street after a not-so-subtle request that you kindly turn over your firearms and ammunition "for the common good," it will be nothing less than suicide by cop to do anything other than what you are told.

 "Want to take this on?"

The militarization of US police forces is ongoing and escalating.  Many cities and towns now own tanks, armed personnel carriers, even attack helicopters, and almost all are outfitted with military weapons not available to the general public.

And, it is not just your hometown cops who are getting new boy-toys.  The military itself is buying up weaponry not just for use in the current or next scheduled war, but to deal with the likes of you, citizens who don't seem to understand that the Bill of Rights has been overruled, and that specifically includes, but is not limited to, the right to protest and engage in civil disobedience.

Also ignored (as if it didn't even exist) is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which generally bars the military from law enforcement activities within the United States.  

According to Public Intelligence:

 "...for the last two years, the President’s Budget Submissions for the Department of Defense have included purchases of a significant amount of combat equipment, including armored vehicles, helicopters and even artillery, under an obscure section of the FY2008 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the purposes of “homeland defense missions, domestic emergency responses, and providing military support to civil authorities.” Items purchased under the section include combat vehicles, tanks, helicopters, artillery, mortar systems, missiles, small arms and communications equipment. Justifications for the budget items indicate that many of the purchases are part of routine resupply and maintenance, yet in each case the procurement is cited as being “necessary for use by the active and reserve components of the Armed Forces for homeland defense missions, domestic emergency responses, and providing military support to civil authorities” under section 1815 of the FY 2008 NDAA." (Emphasis supplied.) 

And, they are not just arming cops and weekend warriors for domestic purposes.  Active duty Marines are now being trained for law enforcement operations all over the world (of which the US remains a part) specifically to deal with civil uprisings, and the US government knows that civil uprisings are coming to a town near you just as soon as the fantasy of a healing economy is shattered, the US dollar fails, and unemployment goes to 30%+ in real numbers.

And, to you tough-talking Neo-Cons with your AR-15 rifles and a few thousand rounds of ammo, here is reality:  they will take your guns, and no, all your Second Amendment bluster aside, you are not going to do anything about it.  You are not going to take on a platoon of Marines with state of the art automatic weapons and the best body armor you cannot buy protected by armed personnel carriers and attack helicopters unless you choose to die that day -- for nothing.

You will either be in the country or out, and if you are in, you will stay in and you will comply. 

That is your choice . . . for the moment. 

Jim Karger is a lawyer, and frequent contributor to The Dollar Vigilante, who has represented American businesses against incursions by government and labor unions for 30 years. In 2001, he left Dallas and moved to San Miguel de Allende in the high desert of central Mexico where he sought and found a freer and simpler life for he and his wife, Kelly, and their 10 dogs.

We really believe those are your choices.  Stay, and submit... or die.  Or go now.  Your ancestors all fled their own oppressive police states in Europe, Asia or Africa and now it is your turn to get out before they shut the door.  There are plenty of much freer places to run to, mostly in Latin America and Asia. 

Anaheim Police In Military Cammo Assault Protesters

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Something is happening in Anaheim, California – despite a complete blackout from the mainstreem media as police brutality rages.

Amber Lyon, award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker, joins Thom Hartmann. Something is happening in Anaheim, California – despite a complete blackout from the mainstreem media. Take a look at some of these pictures by award-winning investigative journalist Amber Lyons from Anaheim over the weekend. When we hear terms like militarized police – this is what comes to mind.

Officers decked out in full military gear as though they’re about to be deployed to Afghanistan. So what’s behind this? Why are militarized police on patrol in Anaheim? Well – Sunday marked the ninth straight day that local citizens took to the streets to protest police brutality.

Nine days after police shot an unarmed man – 25-year-old Manuel Diaz – in the back of the head killing him. Since that shooting…the streets of Anaheim have been the scene of mostly peaceful protests that have at times turned violent in response to heavy handed police crackdowns. Last week – this was the scene in Anaheim – as police in riot gear fired less lethal projectiles like bean bags and pepper balls indiscriminately into crowds of people. 24 people were arrested that night – storefront windows were smashed, and fires were started. And last night – as hundreds poured into the streets for a peaceful march and ceremony for Manuel Diaz – they were once again met with Anaheim police equipped with full military gear. Nine people were arrested on Sunday.

NOTE:  Polite society needs to reject these individuals who brutalize their fellow neighbors & friends, businesses can reject them, turn your back on them.

How To Gum Up Any Institution`~ Follow The Rules EXACTLY

Four words: "Follow the rules exactly."

That's it? That's it.

Any system? Any system.

There are reasons for this. These reasons are universal.

First, every institution assumes voluntary compliance in at least 95% of all cases. This may be a low-ball estimate. Most people comply, either out of fear or lack of concern or strong belief in the system and its goals.

Second, every institution has more rules than it can follow, let alone enforce. Some of these rules are self-contradictory. The more rules, the larger the number of contradictions. (There is probably a statistical pattern here – some variant of Parkinson's law.)

Third, every institution is built on this assumption: partial compliance. Not everyone will comply with any given procedural rule. There are negative sanctions to enforce compliance on the few who resist. They serve as examples to force compliance. Conversely, very few people under the institution's jurisdiction will attempt to force the institution to comply exactly with any procedural rule.

These three laws of institutions – and they really are laws – offer any resistance movement an opportunity to shut down any system.

JAMMING THE GULAG

When we think of institutional tyrannies, few come close to matching the system of concentration camps in the Soviet Union: the Gulag. They operated from 1918 until after the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991. It took time to close them in 1992.

In his book, To Build a Castle, Vladimir Bukovsky provides one of the finest descriptions of institution-jamming ever recorded. He organized it.

What you are about to read is like nothing you have ever read. I have spent over 45 years studying bureaucracies in theory and practice. I have seen nothing to match it.

Bukovsky spent well over a decade in the Soviet gulag concentration camp system in the 1960s and 1970s. He was arrested and sentenced in spite of specific civil rights protections provided by the Soviet Constitution – a document which was never respected by the Soviet bureaucracy. But once in prison, he learned to make life miserable for the director of his camp.

He learned that written complaints had to be responded to officially within a month. This administrative rule governing the camps was for "Western consumption," but it was nevertheless a rule. Any camp administrator who failed to honor it risked the possibility of punishment, should a superior (or ambitious subordinate) decide to pressure him for any reason. In short, any failure to "do it by the book" could be used against him later on.

Bukovsky became an assembly-line producer of official protests. By the end of his career as a "zek," he had taught hundreds of other inmates to follow his lead. By following certain procedures that were specified by the complaint system, Bukovsky's protesting army began to disrupt the whole Soviet bureaucracy. His camp clogged the entire system with protests – hundreds of them per day.

He estimates that eventually the number of formal complaints exceeded 75,000. To achieve such a phenomenal output, the protestors had to adopt the division of labor. Bukovsky describes the process: "At the height of our war, each of us wrote from ten to thirty complaints a day. Composing thirty complaints in one day is not easy, so we usually divided up the subjects among ourselves and each man wrote on his own subject before handing it around for copying by all the others. If there are five men in a cell and each man takes six subjects, each of them has the chance to write thirty complaints while composing only six himself."

The complaints were addressed to prominent individuals and organizations: the deputies of the Supreme Soviet, the regional directors, astronauts, actors, generals, admirals, the secretaries of the Central Committee, shepherds, sportsmen, and so forth. "In the Soviet Union, all well-known individuals are state functionaries."

Each complaint had to be responded to. The camp administrators grew frantic. They threatened punishments, and often imposed them, but it did no good; the ocean of protests grew. Bukovsky's description is incomparable.

The next thing that happens is that the prison office, inundated with complaints, is unable to dispatch them within the three-day deadline. For overrunning the deadline they are bound to be reprimanded and to lose any bonuses they might have won. When our war was at its hottest the prison governor summoned every last employee to help out at the office with this work-librarians, bookkeepers, censors, political instructors, security officers. It went even further. All the students at the next-door Ministry of the Interior training college were pressed into helping out as well.

All answers to and dispatches of complaints have. to be registered in a special book, and strict attention has to be paid to observing the correct deadlines. Since complaints follow a complex route and have to be registered every step of the way, they spawn dossiers and records of their own. In the end they all land in one of two places: the local prosecutor's office or the local department of the Interior Ministry.

These offices can't keep up with the flood either and also break their deadlines, for which they too are reprimanded and lose their bonuses. The bureaucratic machine is thus obliged to work at full stretch, and you transfer the paper avalanche from one office to another, sowing panic in the ranks of the enemy. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats, always at loggerheads with one another, and often enough your complaints become weapons in internecine wars between bureaucrat and bureaucrat, department and department. This goes on for months and months, until, at last, the most powerful factor of all in Soviet life enters the fray – statistics.

As the 75,000 complaints became part of the statistical record, the statistical record of the prison camp and the regional camps was spoiled. All bureaucrats suffered. There went the prizes, pennants, and other benefits. "The workers start seething with discontent, there is panic in the regional Party headquarters, and a senior commission of inquiry is dispatched to the prison."

The commission then discovered a mass of shortcomings with the work of the prison's administration, although the commission would seldom aid specific prisoners. The prisoners knew this in advance. But the flood of protests continued for two years.

The entire bureaucratic system of the Soviet Union found itself drawn into this war. There was virtually no government department or institution, no region or republic, from which we weren't getting answers. Eventually we had even drawn the criminal cons into our game, and the complaints disease began to spread throughout the prison – in which there were twelve hundred men altogether. I think that if the business had continued a little longer and involved everyone in the prison, the Soviet bureaucratic machine would have simply ground to a halt: all Soviet institutions would have had to stop work and busy themselves with writing replies to US.

Finally, in 1977, they capitulated to several specific demands of the prisoners to improve the conditions of the camps. The governor of the prison was removed and pensioned off. Their ability to inflict death-producing punishments did them little good, once the prisoners learned of the Achilles' heel of the bureaucracy: paperwork.. The leaders of the Soviet Union could bear it no longer: they deported Bukovsky.

FROM GANDHI TO ALINSKY

You may have heard of Saul Alinsky. He died in 1972. He gets more publicity these days than he ever got in his lifetime. That is because he was the model for ACORN, the now-defunct community organizing organization. At one stage in his career as a comminity organizer, Barack Obama worked with ACORN.

Alinsky was a follower of Gandhi. That means he refused to use violence in his protests. He was a radical. He was a revolutionary. But he was an opponent of violence. There was a crucial difference between Gandhi's tactics and Alinsky's. Gandhi had a genius for analyzing the British system of controls. He then broke a specific law. That forced the British to arrest him. That gave him a public platform. He spent years in various prisons. This was a high-cost system of resistance. It made him a celebrity. He gained followers. He was world famous.

Alinksy realized early that very few people will pay the price that Gandhi paid. So, he devised a system of resistance that lowered the risk, thereby lowering the cost. He understood the economists' law: "When the cost of producing anything falls, more will be supplied." More of what? Resistance.

His system involved at least one of two tactics: (1) violating a rule to which only a minimal negative sanction was attached, (2) follow the organization's procedural rules to the letter in a Bukovsky-like manner.

He tested his non-violent strategy and tactics in the 1960s in Chicago. He wrote a book on his system, Rules For Radicals (1972). He wrote this.

Let us in the name of radical pragmatism not forget that in our system with all its repressions we can still speak out and denounce the administration, attack its policies, work to build an opposition political base. True, there is still government harassment, but there still is that relative freedom to fight. I can attack my government, try to organize to change it. That's more than I can do in Moscow, Peking, or Havana. Remember the reaction of the Red Guard to the "cultural revolution" and the fate of the Chinese college students. Just a few of the violent episodes of bombings or a courtroom shootout that we have experienced here would have resulted in a sweeping purge and mass executions in Russia, China, or Cuba. Let us keep some perspective.

We will start with the system because there is no other place to start from except political lunacy. It is most important for those of us who want revolutionary change to understand that revolution must be preceded by reformation. To assume that a political revolution can survive without a supporting base of popular reformation is to ask for the impossible in politics.

Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives – agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate. "The revolution was effected before the war commenced; John Adams wrote. "The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people. . . .

This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affections of the people was the real American Revolution." A revolution without a prior reformation would collapse or become a totalitarian tyranny.

SHUTTING DOWN ACORN

If a radical like Alinsky understood this about the nature of man and social change, conservatives should at least give heed to his conclusions concerning tactics. Not bombs but protests and petitions. Not guns but getting people involved in dragging their feet.

ACORN is no more. Why not? Because a conservative activist had read Alinky's book. He learned early how to use guerilla theater. He pretended to be a pimp. He and a young woman worked out a routine. He presented her to an ACORN worker and asked if she could get help with her profession: a prostitute. They said she wanted to bring in girls from Latin America who were under age 18 to work doing tricks. The representative offered suggestions. They visited three ACORN centers. They got helpful advice at all three.

They had a hidden camcorder.

He then went home, dressed up like a stereotypical black pimp – he and the young woman were white – and had an associate shoot videos of himself and the woman on the street. Then he edited the videos and gave them to Andrew Breitbart, who posted them. They went viral. You can see them here.

ACORN had always had financial support from the U.S. government. That video killed the support. ACORN shut down.

A specter is haunting liberalism: the specter of Saul Alinsky.

We need a positive program of changing people's minds. We also need a negative program of successful resistance techniques that will get the State off our backs long enough for us to go about the work of positive reformation. Meanwhile, we can gum up the works.

That literally happened under Alinsky. Some Christian college was foolish enough to allow students to invite him to speak on campus. A group of disgruntled students met with him after his speech. "How can we change this place? We can't do anything. We can't smoke, dance, go to movies, or drink beer. About all we can do is chew gum." Alinsky told them, "Then gum is your answer."

He told them to get 200 or 300 students to buy two packs of gum each. Chew both packs simultaneously every day, and then spit out the wads on campus walks. As he said, 'Why, with five hundred wads of gum I could paralyze Chicago, stop all the traffic in the Loop." He told them to keep it up until the rules were loosened or abolished. The tactic worked. Two weeks later all the rules were lifted. One new rule was substituted: no gum on campus.

That college administration was weak. Its leaders really did not believe in their own standards. They could have immediately banned gum from the campus the second day, with immediate expulsion as the penalty for anyone caught chewing it. But this would have made them look ridiculous to people on the outside. Expelling kids for chewing gum, when other campuses are being bombed by student radicals? The outsiders would never have seen the hundreds of wads of dried gum on the walkways every morning. Bureaucrats never ever want to look ridiculous. They capitulated. They were, in short, fearful bureaucrats. So are most of the people who will give Christians trouble over the next two decades.

We can learn from Alinsky. We must learn how to gum up the works. We must create a new, hypothetical society, "Gummit," which sounds a lot like "Guvmint."

Here are Alinsky's 13 tactical rules:

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
Never go outside the experience of your people.
Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
A tactic that drags on too long is a drag.
Keep the pressure on.
The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter side.
The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize and polarize it.

CONCLUSION

Every system can be brought down. Every system is vulnerable. If you can spot the weak point in the system, you can exploit it.

Leave Your Laptop In Your Bag To Gum Up TSA Works

The other day I had an interesting experience with TSA and it reminded me of an excellent article I read on your website by Gary North called "How To Gum Up Any Institution."

Gary told the story of Vladimir Bukovsky, who single-handedly grounded operations in the Soviet Gulag to a halt by using their own rules against them. It's an incredible story, and I recommend that anyone interested in defeating the State read it.

I was waiting in line to go through the X-ray machine/Porno Scanner. TSA was alternating sending folks through one or the other, causing major delays of course. After passing through, I was held up for another 10 minutes while my bags were in their X-ray machine because the traveler in front of me left his laptop in his bag. I have no idea why laptops must be removed from their bags, nor do I really care because every TSA rule is arbitrary and pointless to discuss.

But why did it delay all of the travelers behind this gentleman 10 minutes? Because TSA welfare cretins must follow the rules, just like the Soviets in Gary North's story. The person examining the bags going through cannot inspect the bag that he flagged for review. He cannot use discretion and allow it to pass (after all, if prudent judgment was his strength, he wouldn't be working for the TSA.) The officer has to yell "bag check!" and wait for a supervisor to come over. And wait. And wait. And wait. This is why TSA stands for Thousands Standing Around. Each person can only do one job at a time. There is no multitasking. If the supervisor is busy, as she was at this time, every other TSA perv continues their current duty – which basically amounts to staring into nothingness as they contemplate how they will spend their big government paychecks.

What followed was predictable. At first the TSA creep running the machine was apathetic to the delay this was causing us. After all, from his point of view, he's not getting delayed, nor does he really have any vested interest in making sure we have an enjoyable experience at the airport (which pretty much explains why no one ever has an enjoyable experience at the airport, by the way!) As time passed, I saw him getting unsettled in response to the grimaces and decreasing patience on our part. I did my best to look him in the eye with an expression that could only say "I want to eat your face." He made a couple of attempts to question the traveler's supposed stupidity in not following their so-very-important rules, but the offender – an Asian man – pretended not to hear him/speak English.

But while I was giving him the death stare, an idea occurred to me – an idea that was the result of reading North's article. I will never take my laptop out of my bag again, and I encourage all of your readers to do the same. It gums up the works. It grinds the entire operation to a halt without any serious ramifications to the offending traveler. (He gets a 1 minute pat-down and an even shorter, somewhat hilarious lecture on passenger safety.) But for the passengers behind him it is a huge hassle, having to wait for no apparent reason while they see dozens of TSA nincompoops standing around doing nothing.

Some might argue that this is passive-aggressive behavior created to deal with fear. My reply would be, so what? I admit that I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'll miss my flight. I'm afraid I'll get into a confrontation with an agent that will escalate. I'm afraid that I'll be put on a no-fly list, making it nearly impossible to visit family and friends. I readily admit my fears. Gumming up the works sure beats living in fear. It's something I can do, and do often, without having to worry about getting caged or beaten or banned.

Others might object that I'm making life miserable for innocent travelers behind me. I can understand that and I sympathize with that view. I know I didn't find it very pleasant to be delayed by 10 minutes. But as those who support the TSA always tell me, "If you don't like it, you don't have to fly."

So leave your laptop in your bag. Grind TSA operations to a halt with a simple act of non-violence. Then pretend you had no idea they had such a rule in the first place.

Thousands Of Bolivian Police Riot

Internment Camp Guards Needed In The US

Look at a current Job Advertisement:- Job Title As an Internment/Resettlement Specialist for the Army National Guard, you will ensure the smooth running of military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility, similar to those duties conducted by civilian Corrections Officers. This will require you to know proper procedures and military law; and have the ability to think quickly in high-stress situations. Specific duties may include assisting with supervision and management operations; providing facility security; providing custody, control, supervision, and escort; and counseling individual prisoners in rehabilitative programs.

Corrections Officer Internment/Resettlement Specialist
Job Details
City: Pensacola/Panama City
State: Florida
Country: USA
Company Name: Army National Guard
Job Category: Legal/Law Enforcement/Security
Job Description

So that’s not a normal Prison Guard is it! Alex Jones has always spoken of Martial Law coming and the only alternative to FEMA Camps is, Martial Law.

The Bush-era proposal would also have required airlines and cruise lines to store more information about domestic and international passengers, such as e-mail addresses, traveling companions and return flight information. The information would be subject to review by federal officials in a health emergency, though it would be voluntary for passengers to provide the data.

The proposals to limit liberty represent a dangerous precedent to constitutional theory, particularly when there’s almost no evidence it will matter. It wouldn’t surprise me if they try to sneak this past in August, when people are away.

The next stage I would expect would be to move more US Troops out of the USA on deployment so they don’t become a threat as Patriots and bring in Foreign Troops

Video Proff Positive Fullerton Cops Killed Helpless, Homeless Man

Wed May 9, 2012 8:50AM GMT
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A newly-released surveillance video footage showing the beating of a homeless individual by California policemen has once again exposed the extreme brutality exercised by US police officers against potential suspects.


The footage was recorded last July by a closed-circuit camera at a bus terminal in California’s City of Fullerton in Orange County but was released on Tuesday at a pre-trial hearing of the police officers allegedly involved in the beating of the homeless man, which later resulted in his death.

The footage displays how the homeless man, Kelly Thomas, is being struck repeatedly with fists, batons and finally by the butt of a stun gun by police officers.

Fullerton police officer Manuel Ramos and Corporal Jay Cicinelli have reportedly been charged in the case with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.

Testifying at the hearing, a trauma surgeon stated that the continuous compression of Thomas’s chest during his confrontation with California police officers led to breathing complications that eventually caused his death.

The surgeon, Dr. Michael Lekawa, pointed to audio and video recordings of the incident by a surveillance camera that clearly shows that Thomas’s voice changes from initial shouts of “I can’t breathe” to long, drawn-out moans before he completely stops talking.

State prosecutors insist that Fullerton police officer Manuel Ramos punched Thomas in the ribs, tackled him and pinned him down. They further contend that officer Jay Cicinelli used a Taser gun four times on Thomas as he screamed in pain and also struck him in the face eight times with the butt of the Taser gun.

Thomas lost consciousness following the incident and was taken to a hospital, where he passed away after five days.

Congressman Objects To TSA Sexual Molestation At Airport Checkin

Regionalized Martial Law In Us

'If Transportation Security pat downs at public venues, thousands of drones over the skies of America, and the National Security Agency’s new Echelon-like listening center in Utah weren’t enough to convince you that we’re living in a police state, then perhaps the latest news out of Chicago will change your mind.

As world leaders prepare to meet in the windy city for their annual NATO summit, U.S. federal officials are working feverishly to implement a security net so broad that it encompasses the entirety of Cook County, Illinois. While international summits are traditionally met with a larger police presence and preparations for the possibility of protests or rioting, what’s taking place on American soil in anticipation of the May 20 meeting in downtown Chicago can be interpreted in only one way – the implementation of regionalized martial law.'

Freedom Killing Bill Just Became Law

For those of you who still believe the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, your faith is about to be shattered by a new law that likely will lead to, in essence, "no speech zones." And, as is the case with most freedom-robbing legislation, this law is being justified in the name of security or, more appropriately, security for a select few.

The measure, called the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, was signed into law by President Obama March 8 after it passed in the Senate following minor modifications made in the House. Critics are knocking the measure because, essentially, it restricts protests near the president.

According to a "fact check" of the legislation, the current measure actually updates an original law passed in 1971 that "already restricted access to areas around the president, vice president and any other governmental official protected by the Secret Service, according to Thomas.gov," the Florida Times-Union reported.

The old version made it a federal crime to "willfully and knowingly" violate certain restricted areas, such as the White House grounds and the vice president's residence and grounds. The updated law changes it to just "knowingly," and there is where legal analysts differ on the law's actual meaning and application.

Not a big deal - until it's a big deal?

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Rooney, R-Fla., who introduced House Resolution 347, the law's congressional designation, the Secret Service requested legislation that would clarify some jurisdictional issues for agents assigned to protect the president. For instance, the spokesman said, "[I]f someone were to jump the fence at the White House, the Secret Service would not have jurisdiction over the trespasser."

Critics say that by dropping the term "willfully," the updated law gives the Secret Service unprecedented power to define what constitutes "restricted areas." They say the law could chill the free speech rights of Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street protesters who are demonstrating in places where the president is present.

"This is the state of mind the government has to prove you had to establish your guilt [the 'intent standard']. 'Willfully and knowingly' means that you need to know you're committing a crime. 'Knowingly' just means you need to be aware you're in a restricted zone, but not necessarily that it's unlawful," writes Gabe Rottman of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"H.R. 347 doesn't create any new crimes, or directly apply to the Occupy protests. [...]" he said.

Not so fast, say the critics

Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano, who is a current legal analyst for Fox News, disagrees. He says he believes the law will directly affect the first amendment rights of Americans who want to peacefully assemble and present their point of view.

"Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political speech is politically useless," Napolitano said during a recent Fox News segment.

Adds Russell Smith, a blogger for the New York Law School's Program in Law and Journalism, "[...] Since police can arrest and remove anyone in violation of [someone jumping the White House fence], the government doesn't need H.R. 347 in order to protect its property from damage and its officials from intruders."

Rottman says that, on the surface, there may not be much to worry about. But the devil, as usual, is in the details.

"Any time the government lowers the intent requirement, it makes it easier for a prosecutor to prove her case, and it gives law enforcement more discretion when enforcing the law. To be sure, this is of concern to the ACLU. We will monitor the implementation of H.R. 347 for any abuse or misuse," he said.

Chicago Police Demand Condo Residents Move Out For Nato Conference Or Be Subject To Lockdown

Residents of a Chicago condo received a letter from management last week informing them that they should move out of their homes during the upcoming NATO confab to be held in the Windy City next month.

If the residents decide to remain, they will be subjected to a lockdown.

“In the event of a riot or the potential of one near the building,” the letter states, “all access doors will be locked including the garage door. For everyone’s safety we will be instructing anyone in the building to stay in his or her unit.”

Aaron Klein, writing for WorldNetDaily on Saturday, said radicals with ties to Obama plan to riot during the NATO summit.

In August of 2011, Klein said the founders of a “radical group that teaches tactics of direct action, confrontation and intimidation” were among a “slew of extremist organizations, some tied to President Obama, preparing protests to coincide with major NATO and G-8 summits in Chicago.”

Klein quoted Joe Losbaker of the United National Antiwar Committee, one of the groups planning protests, who warned, “The wars and economic policies of the NATO and G8 nations are not just and will be met by protest.”

Losbaker and his wife, Stephanie Weiner, worked as leaders of the Chicago New Party. It was formed by the Democratic Socialists of America, ACORN and the labor union SEIU.

The Communist Party USA breakaway group Committees of Correspondence and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) were also involved in forming the New Party.

According to WND, Obama was a member of the now defunct New Party and his name was included in the party’s newsletter.

The IPS is a Marxist organization formed in the early 1960s. It has received funding from the banker James Warburg, the son of the infamous banker Paul Warbrug. The elder Warburg was instrumental in creating the Federal Reserve and was chosen by President Woodrow Wilson to serve as one of its first members.

It may seem odd for an international banker to fund a Marxist organization supposedly advocating the destruction of finance capital.

“If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of superrich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all,” writes the late Gary Allen.

“Instead it becomes the logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite.”

Klein said Code Pink also plans to protest during the NATO and G8 summit in May. Code Pink’s co-founder, Jodie Evans, was an Obama fundraiser.

She sits on the leadership board of Warburg’s IPS. Code Pink co-founder, Medea Benjamin, set-up Global Exchange, an “anti-globalization” organization that took money from globalist foundations, including the Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rubin Foundation, and Tides Foundation.

The Ford Foundation has a long and sordid history of collaboration with the CIA.

As Infowars.com has exhaustively documented, violence at globalist summits and confabs is invariably instigated by “anarchists” who report to the police. Supposed anarchist violence was used in Ottawa, Pittsburgh, London, Strasbourg and elsewhere to disrupt and discredit anti-globalism and other political groups and provide a pretext for police violence against
non-violent protesters.




Former Obama chief of staff and current Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has used the threat of agents provocateur instigated riots in Chicago next month to brazenly grab more power and further militarize the city’s police. On April 17, Infowars.com reported on military exercises in preparation for the NATO summit in Chicago.

Residents are now being prepared for pre-planned and orchestrated violence by Marxist political groups and their anarchist shock troops funded by bankers and globalist foundations and coordinated by the CIA.

Chicagoans may get to experience what it is like to live under military siege and martial law if they do not take the advice of condo management companies and head out of the city on May 20.

How Smart Is It To Use Wireless Or Submit To The Smart Grid?

A global "Smart Grid" program is being implemented which is blasting homes and businesses with more electromagnetic radiation than human beings have ever been subject to in human history. It is utterly preposterous to assume this will not lead to major human epidemics.

We must now face the very serious problem that the institutions, government, corporations and foundations, that are supposed to be serving our interests are deliberately violating, exploiting, endangering and assaulting us.

This video exposes electromagnetic radiation (EMR) as a major danger and violation to all current and future generations.

NOTE: Asbestos is NOT banned and found in common household & construction products.....

Dr Helen Caldicott 389 Days After Fukushima

Thousands Protest Canadian Mining Operation

Thousands of people in the northwest Argentine province of La Rioja are mobilising to stop an open-cast gold mining project in the Nevados de Famatina, a snowy peak that is the semi-arid area's sole source of drinking water.

La Rioja "is a dry province and we have just enough clean water to live on, but not to share with miners," one of the protesters, Héctor Artuso, a resident from the small town of Villa Pituil, in the Famatina area, told IPS.

Residents of Famatina and neighbouring Chilecito have set up a partial roadblock at Alto Carrizal, a stop located 4,000 metres above sea level on a gravel road leading up to the highest point of this mountain chain, Cerro General Belgrano (better known as Nevados de Famatina), which stands at 6,250 metres.

Still visible in Famatima as historical reminders of nineteenth- century mining activities is the abandoned mining site "La Mejicana", which includes a tramway system built by a British company in 1905 to transport gold and other metal extracted for export.

Back then mining was done in underground pits. Today, modern mining methods require large explosions, huge volumes of water, and the use of cyanide to extract the mineral, which is why local residents are protesting.

The activists maintain the Alto Carrizal roadblock day and night, but are selective in whose passage they block. Local residents and tourists are allowed through, while provincial authorities are stopped, along with anyone representing the Canadian company authorised by the Argentine government to mine the area.

Protesters are backed by a number of national and international environmental NGOs, including Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Greenpeace, and Los Verdes, which in recent days voiced their concern about the activists' safety, reporting threats and harassment. Political parties from the opposition and celebrities are also stepping forward to support the anti-mining campaign.

The conflict was sparked in October 2011, when local residents learned that the La Rioja state-owned mining and energy company Energía y Minerales Sociedad del Estado (EMSE) had signed an agreement with the Quebec-based Osisko Mining Corporation, to mine Nevados de Famatina.

The agreement was never made public, and the government failed to hold the public hearings and perform the environmental impact studies stipulated under the 2002 General Environmental Act. Even Famatina authorities were left out of the agreement.

Mayor Ismael Bordagaray, in fact, supports the demonstrations against the mining project. "I'm doing it basically because I have to stand by my community and this is what the majority of the community wants," he told IPS.

But the mayor said he was also concerned as a citizen. "I have the same fears and misgivings about the risks of pollution, indiscriminate use of water, and lack of controls that come with this kind of project," he said.

Bordagaray also said he had read the agreement, which he found very vague, and does not know why it has not been made available to the public. It was Osisko that gave him a copy, and not the provincial government, which is headed by Bordagaray' own political group, the Frente para la Victoria, the majority faction of the centre-left Justicialist Party of President Cristina Fernández.

La Rioja Governor Jorge Beder Herrera's position on mining has shifted since coming into office. During his 2011 campaign he had spoken against it, but after the election he announced the agreement signed with the mining corporation.

Now, despite overwhelming opposition, EMSE Director Héctor Durán Sabas declared that they will be going ahead with the project "because it's a state decision and a matter of public policy".

In Argentina, provinces have jurisdiction over their natural resources, and the national government's regulatory role is limited to setting basic guidelines on which each province then bases its own specific legislation.

Héctor Artuso explained why the local population opposes the project. "We're not environmental or anti-mining activists. We're just regular people who reject this foreign-led model of natural resource extraction, which uses cyanide and large volumes of water."

"Our community is fully aware (of what the project entails) because we've been through this before," he said, recalling how in 2006 the local population succeeded in stopping a similar project by another Canadian mining company, Barrick Gold Corporation, and later a Chinese venture.

Many people who are participating in the current demonstrations were also involved in the anti-mining rallies, marches and roadblocks that began in 2006, and the reasons are the same: the fear their water will be polluted.

Communities Pay High Price Of Hydro Electric Power

At first sight the small town of La Playa in the department of Santander in Colombia seems gripped by a minor boom. Its population has rocketed while new residential buildings, shops and small bars blaring out loud music have sprung up all over town. Yet the growth does nothing to mask the pervading atmosphere of desperation and frustration among its long-term residents, brought on by living with the uncertainty of whether there will even be a town in the future.

The new buildings and bars cater to the new residents – construction workers from all over the country who have flooded the community to work on the Hidrosogamoso hydro-electric dam. According to the people of La Playa, after three years of construction work the dam has already decimated the traditional local economy, wrecked the eco-system and disrupted the social and cultural life of the community.

When finished, the 190m high dam on the river Sogamoso will hold back a reservoir covering 7,000 hectares. With an 820 megawatt capacity, the dam will provide approximately to 10% of Colombia’s electricity, according to ISAGEN, the mixed public/private company behind the project.

Hydroelectric power already generates over 70% of Colombia’s electricity and dams both large and small dot the landscape throughout the country. Construction is currently underway on a host of new projects, including several controversial mega-dams that have faced a backlash from affected communities. The $.5.5 billion Hidroituango dam in Antioquia is the largest of the new projects and is projected to supply a fifth of Colombia’s energy when construction ends in 2018. Last March, over 4,000 people from the region marched against the construction while in November 80 miners staged a protest against the dam’s threat to their way of life that only ended more than a month later when they were evicted by riot police. In the department of Huila, construction of the El Quimbo dam has also been met with popular resistance and in January this year protesters shut down construction by blockading the site in protest against its impact on local communities and the environment.

Many of the next generation of dams are not just looking to meet the country’s energy needs, they are also looking to capitalize on the growing carbon trading market. Despite increasing concerns over whether large hydroelectric dams can be considered “clean” energy due to methane emissions from reservoir surfaces, spillways, and turbines, hydroelectric projects still make up a large part of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – the UN’s carbon trading scheme. The controversial scheme allows polluters in industrialized countries to purchase carbon credits from emissions reduction projects in the developing world in order to meet their Kyoto Protocol targets. In Colombia, eight hydroelectric projects have already been approved for the CDM, while 12 hope to be, including Hidrosogamoso and Quimbo.

The people of the Sogamoso river basin first heard about plans for the Hidrosogamoso when ISAGEN held meetings in the nine municipalities that would be affected. The meetings were supposed to fulfill the company’s constitutional obligation to actively consult with communities affected by the project. However, according to “Tomas”, a community leader in La Playa, the community consultations amounted to little more than a series of presentations about the benefits of the project. “They only came to encourage the making of the dam,” he said, “[to tell us] what they were going to do, how they were going to bring benefits to the people, training and work ... they never came to ask us if we wanted the dam here, [or if] we agreed with what they were going to do.”

Most people in the communities initially welcomed the project. “It brought a lot of hope for the region” said Tomas. According to Tomas, ISAGEN told them the dam would bring employment while the company would invest in health and education and improve water and sewage systems. They also said that life downriver of the dam would be unharmed, thanks to the company’s stringent environmental standards and careful monitoring. According to Tomas, “The reality we are living at the moment never came out.”

ISAGEN dispute the claim. The company says it carried out consultations in 128 communities involving 2,100 people and that the consultations included the project’s impacts and the company’s mitigation plans. Alberto Bustamente, the project’s Environmental Coordinator, said, “It is not ISAGEN’s style nor is it policy to sell the project, to show the wonders of the project and say ‘this is development,’” he said.

When construction began it was not long before down river communities like La Playa began to feel the impact. Like most of the other nearby communities, La Playa depends on the river for its existence. The river was a source of irrigation for crops, building materials and a tourist attraction. Most of all, it was an abundant source of fish, the engine of the local economy. Before the arrival of ISAGEN, the overwhelming majority of La Playa’s men worked as fishermen. Now most are unemployed or casually employed.

“Carlos” has lived in La Playa for 30 years. “We have lived all our lives from fishing and we have always had the opportunity to take ourselves forwards,” he said. “Now, the environment and the life here aren’t the same, it is culturally completely different to what we had three years ago.”

The fishermen noticed a drop in the levels of fish shortly after construction on the dam began. Some of the men continued to eke out a living but now, three years on, there are no full time fishermen in La Playa. Locals blame the decline on contamination from waste materials from the construction being dumped into the river and feeder streams and residue from the explosives used in excavations. They point to the large piles of waste materials on the river banks, saying when water levels are high it washes downstream. According to Carlos, construction on the dam has also disrupted the fish’s reproductive cycle, blocking them from the upriver streams where they would reproduce.

ISAGEN claim the low levels of fish are because of seasonal fluctuations related to Colombia’s wet season and the affects of climate phenomenon La Niña, although the company has admitted responsibility for one case of killing fish by dumping waste. According to Mr Bustamente, “Throughout construction, there is not a single activity related to the project that affects the river. The residues and material from the tunnels, roads and other works are taken to specially designed disposal sites.”

The company points to the fact that at the end of 2011, some fish began to return to the region. However, according to “Julian,” who has worked as a fisherman all his life, the catch is a tiny proportion of what there was before the start of construction. Julian was also deeply skeptical about the company’s claims the fish levels were related to climatic conditions. “The wet season is something natural but this contamination, this is done by people,” he said.

The company is currently touting its plan to restock the streams where the fish reproduce to try and kick-start the eco-system. The fishermen though, are skeptical, shrugging it off as a futile gesture as they claim the water is too polluted for the fish to survive.

The decline of fishing did not just affect the men of the La Playa. Many of the town’s women worked as fish vendors, selling the day’s catch in roadside stalls. The stalls, abandoned and dusty, still line the road and drivers still pull over stop to try and buy fish when they spot a woman nearby. Although some have returned to selling fish in recent weeks, around half of what they sell is brought from the nearest city. “Roberta” worked for years selling fish side by side with her two sisters. “Just like our husbands worked, we always supported our families as well,” she said. “We always worked but now...nothing.”

The dam has also hit La Playa’s other sources of income. Tourism has slowed to a trickle as the residents say the river is now too polluted to swim in, while agriculture has withered away to near nothing. While the odd papaya tree still spots the town, the semi-formal cultivation of crops to sell, trade or share locally has all but ended. Much of the land used for agriculture was lost when the company bought up small plots of land that had previously been used for crops to use for extracting building materials and as dumps for waste material. Combined with the sudden population boom, this has contributed to a scarcity of food and sky-rocketing prices. According to ISAGEN both the problems with the crops and with the river are related to Colombia’s wet season.

The destruction of the traditional economy in the region has led to a surge in unemployment. According to ISAGEN, the 4,000 plus construction jobs created by the project would fill that gap as locals would have priority when it came to filling positions. “When they [the company] arrived, they said there would be work here even for our children,” said “Andres,” a former fisherman who has worked on site at the dam. However, according to Andres and others who have worked at the company, work is scarce and the men from La Playa are treated as casual, disposable labor. They claim they are ill-paid, ill-treated and have no stability.

The company’s statistics show that in December 82 workers were from La Playa and 1,892 were from the nine municipalities affected by the dam. However locals claim many jobs are taken by people from outside the region who claim residency in the communities. For the people from the town, the company demand certifications and qualifications they almost never have. “You can’t get these [qualifications],” said Andres, “because you are born in the countryside and you are a campesino.”

According to Andres, workers from outside the region receive higher wages along with accommodation and food allowances, while those from La Playa work long hours without proper breaks and are often fired without justification. “If you are from La Playa," he said, “you can’t even get sick.”

According to ISAGEN, local employees are paid the same as their counterparts from outside the region, although most are not directly employed by the company but by contractors, and they have established several bodies to look into claims of labor rights abuses. The company also claims studies show the opposite to what locals claim – that since the arrival of the project residents have improved their income and access to social security

While a few of the town’s women have found work at the ISAGEN administrative center, most have been left with little option but to cater to the work force, renting out rooms in their houses, cooking, cleaning and washing their clothes. Yet the sudden influx of mostly young men, away from their homes and families, has brought its own problems. “This is an invasion” said Roberta.

Roberta and her sisters, “Juliana” and “Marta”, say the workers have brought with them social problems previously unheard of in La Playa, including a surge in drug and alcohol abuse and prostitution. “The people from other parts have brought bad habits that they have had in other places,” said Juliana, “and it is influencing the people of this region, before everyone was clean-living.” Several rapes and attempted rapes involving workers have been reported in nearby communities and many of the town’s women speak of feeling afraid to go out alone after dark.

According to Juliana and her sisters, the social changes are having the biggest impact on the children and teenagers of the town. “Now you have to watch your children carefully,” said Juliana, “because they go about picking up these ideas. When did children ever steal here before? Now they go about stealing everything.”

The sudden influx of workers has also contributed to a spiraling cost of living and has stretched resources such as water to breaking point. The improvements to public services promised by the company have yet to materialize.

While the economic disruption the dam has brought threatens the financial future of La Playa, locals are also concerned about a more dramatic existential threat – earthquakes. Although the science remains clouded in uncertainty, an increasing number of scientists believe the weight of water from newly created reservoirs and the water’s ability to penetrate rock below could change the pressure exerted on seismic fault lines. Experts have suggested hydroelectric dams could be to blame for earthquakes from China to Chile.

The Sogamoso dam is being constructed in one of the most seismically active zones in Colombia, just 70km from the Bucaramanga “earthquake nest,” Juliana said. “We are at the mercy of God here because everyone knows, you shouldn’t play with nature.” In March, negotiations between the ISAGEN and community representatives led to an agreement that the company would carry out a seismic risk study. Many in the community though, remain troubled by the idea of La Playa being washed away. “That is how we are looking at the future,” said Juliana, “that there might not be a town.”

Even when the impacts of construction of the Sogamoso dam began to be felt in La Playa and other affected communities, there was initially little organized resistance to the project. Tomas first took on his role as a representative of the community when people became disillusioned with his predecessor who, he said, was too easily manipulated by the company. “When we woke up [to what was going on], it was already too late,” he said, “because they had everything locked down, we couldn’t do anything.” According to Tomas, until recently opposition to the dam has been hampered by the divisions that have wracked the communities in the region. “There has been terrible disunity here,” he said. “And that has strengthened the company further.”

A turning point came in March, when 700 opponents to the dam staged a three-day blockade of the construction site to force the company into negotiations. On the first day riot police attacked the protesters outside the ISAGEN offices with clubs, leaving several protesters badly injured. Juliana, who attended the protest, said, “They are the powerful ones and we have nothing to defend ourselves with when they attack us like that.” She added, “They treated us like terrorists, like we had kidnapped the workers.”

Despite the police assault, the picket continued until community representatives negotiated an agreement with the company. The settlement included 17 points, dealing with issues from the right to peaceful protest to retraining programs. The success of the protest changed the atmosphere in the area. “Before we didn’t have the confidence we could do the blockade, now we do” said Juliana.

As a result of the agreement, the company has begun construction on public works projects, started retraining programs for fish sellers and other workers, and has increased monitoring of environmental and labor standards.

Paraguay Land Soy & Boots

Eight million hectares, half the surface area of Uruguay:

That is the combined area that the government of Fernando Lugo is hoping to investigate, to determine if the lands are "ill-gotten," whose title deeds could be forged or faked or simply seized from the times of the Stroessner dictatorship. The landowners who have inundated Paraguay with transgenic soy are resisting the review, in an alliance with a parliament where Lugo is clearly in the minority. The conflict could lead to an institutional breakdown – to the sound of [army] boots.

Magui Balbuena, of the National Council of Organizations of Rural and Indigenous Workers, offers her account to Brecha Magazine of a conflict that has as its epicenter the Paraguayan department of Alto Paraná, on the border with Brazil.

What is the situation in Alto Paraná, and what are the conflicting interests?

The struggle of the landless in this area has been going on for a long time. Recently Lugo's government has sought to legislate on the border lands that are being destroyed by multinationals, mainly Brazilian. Then the government sent the military to the border to place boundary markers and inspect title deeds. There are many doubts about how, in a very short time – about 10 years – those border lands passed into the hands of foreigners; and they are the best lands!

Those expanses are dedicated to the cultivation of transgenic soy, a monoculture for export. They have destroyed mountains, they have dried up streams and drained swamps, they have poisoned rivers with indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals. This is a very serious situation that is taking place across the country, but mainly in the border area, where a kind of patriotic spirit is rising because what the people see in those areas no longer looks like Paraguay. The campesinos feel they are the owners of the land and they react. When the soldiers went to place the boundary markers and check the title deeds of those fields, the "carperos" reacted.

What is the "carpero" movement?

It is people from different departments who are in the conflict area and are questioning a Brazilian landowner named Tranquilino Favero. He has land in three or four departments, some of the best land near the border. He has endless farms and soy fields that in all exceed one million hectares.

The National Institute of Rural Development and Land (INDERT) has started to investigate and verify the origin of the title deeds of this businessman, many of which are fake or forged. But there is also a real mafia inside INDERT that for years has sold and resold land belonging to the state.

This is what created the crisis in Ñacunday, in the department of Alto Paraná. There they are questioning a piece of land of 162,000 hectares on the border, currently controlled by Favero, that the landless campesinos claim was distributed between them by the state.

How did the different parties react?

It has been a delicate situation since the army arrived in the middle of January to place the boundary markers. The big soy farmers united around Favero to defend him. That is the case with the Agricultural Coordinator of Paraguay, the Coordinator of Soy Producers and the cooperatives. The fact that the army is there has prevented the landowners from acting against the campesinos who claim the land. There is even an order from the Interior Ministry so that the police do not suppress them. But the landowners resisted the setting of markers. Why do they refuse the examination of the documents by the state? The district attorney and the entire congress are on the side of the soy farmers, and they have covered up this problem of the "ill-gotten" lands.

The only way that the land will continue to be under the sovereignty of our country is to offer land to the thousands and thousands of campesinos who claim it.

Have there been direct confrontations by the landowners?

The pressure is very great, the press is on the side of the soy farmers, and there is real risk that they will act as they know how: with violence against the landless campesinos. The landlords have already organized armed groups and have threatened to act on their own. We are currently in a tug-of-war, and a political problem is emerging because the soy farmers have threatened that if the government continues it could put the 2013 elections at risk. They have even had meetings of military retirees. Their allies are very strong here in Paraguay. Remember that according to some estimates, the "ill-gotten" lands occupy an area of eight million hectares and are in the hands of officials, members of the military, companies, and collaborators of [former] dictator Alfredo Stroessner.

Are we talking then of a risk of institutional breakdown?

That's right. The problem in Paraguay is agriculture, of the land. There is a profound contradiction between the 400,000 landless families and Brazilian settlers ("brasiguayos") who already occupy not only border lands but also lands deep into the Chaco. It is a wooded area, natural. It is a true lung of the earth that must concern everyone. There is no control over it and it is being preyed upon, destroyed by the cultivation of transgenic soy. The right-wing of the parliament supports these invaders and it is very difficult to do something to recover sovereignty. It's an outrage, a true plundering of our land. Under this model, which has existed for decades, the women and children suffer the consequences the most: illnesses, malformations, abortions, and the extreme impoverishment of our communities and families.

We really believe that there are actors whose goal is destabilization, even resorting to bloodshed to heighten the conflict.

Brasiguayos

Over half a million Brazilians have lived in Paraguay for the past several decades. They include all kinds, but those who are central to the conflict are the landlords who have settled in the border areas in the east of the country, particularly in Alto Paraná. The majority of the landlords own enormous expanses of land that they for years have dedicated to the super-profitable cultivation of soy. And they defend their lands with arms. The dictator Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) found the landlords to be great allies, and let them act as they pleased on territories that were extended with no restrictions. Of the 1.5 million hectares planted with soy in the east of the country, 1.2 million of them are planted by Brazilians. The "brasiguayos" and others who arrived more recently acquired the land for a bargain price: land that in Brazil is worth $7,000 to $8,000 per hectare, in Paraguay they paid from $1,000 to at most $4,000 for the most fertile land, above all for those lands that until recent times were dedicated to ranching. In fact, in the east of the country, they do not enforce the 2005 law that prohibits the purchase or usufruct of lands situated less than 50 kilometers from the border by citizens of neighboring countries. Even less attention is paid to environmental regulations.

The hi-tech production of soy (the Brazilians "modernized" the Paraguayan agricultural sector) to a large extent drove small producers out of those areas. Claudia Ricca, of the NGO Friends of the Earth, which works in the area, told the BBC: "There is no benefit whatsoever for the area: the people are expelled from their jobs and territory, the roads are completely destroyed by the soy farmers' trucks, the businessmen don't live here, they don't pay taxes, and none of what is earned stays in the communities."

Tranquilino Favero, a septuagenarian who disembarked in Paraguay in the early 1960s, symbolizes the "brasiguayos" like few others. He crossed the border tempting fate, soon after the dictatorship was established, and today he is one of the biggest businessmen in the country. He is called the "king of soy" and is in charge of an empire that has its own army of hit men.

His connections in the army are notorious, and on multiple occasions Favero has called to "resist the advance of communism," which he sees symbolized by Fernando Lugo because of the president's historic links to campesinos and landless movements. Dozens of campesinos have been killed in the east of Paraguay by "unknowns," probably paid off by the landlords in the area.

Latin America Facing World Water Forum

The media tells us that 8 million people die every year from illnesses related to water; that more than a billion people lack access to potable water; and that more than 2.4 billion do not have access to sanitation.

These grave numbers, revised upward every three years, are cited by the World Water Council as the reason for convening their tri-annual World Water Forum. While the Water Forum, billed with a strong corporate flavor as an “international multi-stakeholder platform,” has a different character than the annual Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the results are largely the same: a lot of talking, perhaps even a lot of good intentions, but little action, and universal frustration.

So it is that the Sixth World Water Forum opens today (March 12-17) in Marseille, France. At $1000 for participants from wealthy nations, and about $450 for participants from the ‘under-developed countries,’ the cost of attending makes the forum inaccesible to those who come from the countries of the Global South.

And so it is that every three years those of us who believe this Forum to be illegitimate gather together to denounce it. And every three years, over the course of many months, organizations and movements from around the World come together to hold the Alternative World Water Forum. We have done so previously, in Kyoto in 2003, in Mexico City in 2006, and in Istanbul in 2009. Now, in 2012, in Marseilles, the last details for this year’s convening are being worked out.

The challenges facing our social movements are enormous. The greatest of these challenges is the construction of viable alternatives to the dominant economy and to the regime of natural resource management that is based on extraction, exploitation, and extreme energy.

The questions are clear, the answers diverse and complex. For example, who should convene these fora? If the World Water Council has no legitimate right to push decisions regarding global water issues, does the United Nations? We are struggling to put water in public hands – but is it truly public when the State controls it? Or when it is in the hands of us, the people? How can we create conditions where State-managed water systems coexist with systems developed and managed by the community? How can we get beyond the demagoguery that dominates the discourse of human rights and the Human Right to Water? In the cases of Bolivia and Ecuador, how can we advance the defense of Mother Earth and her natural Rights when the practical demands of running a country within a global economy are in direct contradiction to ecological concerns?

Wherever we are headed, the world continues turning, and it will not stop in Marseille. Throughout the Americas, discontent is on the rise in the face of governments left, right and center, red, green and pink. We are witnesses, not to a series of isolated uprisings, but to a global movement against the unwarranted ambition of the corporate agenda, and in defense of the Commons.

In Chile, the population of Aysén has risen up and put state authorities in checkmate, because the government of Sebastian Piñera remembers them only when it comes time to launch a hydroelectric project.

In Ecuador, March 8, International Women’s Day, marked the launch of the National March for Life and the Dignity of the People. The march, convened by the National Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONAIE) and other sectors, seeks to unmask the neoliberal policies of the Correa administration and the ongoing criminalization of the indigenous peoples’ movement. The march, which began in the province of Zamora and will end in Quito on World Water Day, March 22, is also in defense of the Constitution of Montecristi and the approval of the revolutionary agrarian law and the popular water law.

Not long ago in Peru, a similar March for Water ended with the alignment of new social sectors following the approval by the government of Ollanta Humala of mining projects in Cajamarca, in the face of widespread resistance and discontent.

In Bolivia, the peoples of the Indigenous Territory and National Park Isiboro Secure (TIPNIS) are preparing their ninth march against the Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos highway that the Morales government continues to promote as part of the interoceanic corridor to unite Brazil to Chile.

In the United States, the Occupy movement has been evicted from the plazas, but has expanded to the neighborhoods and other public spaces in the form of workshops, gatherings, and assemblies that may easily come to be more of a threat to the authorities, and teh authroitarians, than the simple occupation of public spaces.

Hours before the beginning of the World Water Forum in Marseille, reflecting on what is happening in our countries, I feel a kind of anger that it is an affair like this – a gathering of corporate elites – that brings us together, again. Every three years we unite to delegitimize and denounce this profit-oriented trade fair that is built on our backs by the corporations that make up the World Water Forum. It shouldn’t be this way.

But, I maintain hope: the day will come when we will gather together not to respond to the destructive agenda of the corporate elites, but because we see the way forward, because we have a clear, common agenda; because we are called by solidarity to do so. We will gather together because we will have learned not only from our defeats, but from our victories.

At the end of the day, we will join together because we desire to do so, as brothers and sisters on this planet we call Earth, and because it is our legitimate right.

Marcela Olivera is a Bolivian water rights activist, based in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Currently she is a Visiting Global Associate of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University.

Water Yes! Gold No!

“¡Agua sí! ¡Oro no! ¡Agua sí! ¡Oro no!” [Water yes! Gold no!]

The chant vibrated through the thin Andean air as a regional demonstration against the Conga Gold Mine Project took place last Thursday to honor World Water Day. Thousands of residents of Cajamarca, Peru, gathered at the Laguna Azul, one of many high-altitude lakes on the proposed Conga Mine site, in effort to protect their water resources from exploitation and contamination.

“We are not asking for something that is not ours. The water in this lagoon and below it has fed our people for many centuries and Conga is going to take that away from us,” said Avelardo Escobar Huaman, a resident of El Tambo, Cajamarca. “The gold mine is going to destroy our springs and water sources. Here, we are mainly farmers. How will we grow our crops and feed our animals without water?”

Once it begins, the $4.8 billion Conga Project, a joint venture between U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation and Peruvian company Mina Buenaventura, will become the largest investment in Peru’s history and the second largest gold mine in the world. The open pit mine would affect between 3,000-16,000 hectares of fragile mountaintop wetlands including numerous lakes, rivers and marshes that supply the region’s drinking water.

Currently, the gold mine is on hold while international consultants review the environmental impact study which approved the Conga project in 2010. As the nation awaits the results, Cajamarca residents have been continuously demonstrating against the mine, organizing rallies and marches, sometimes more than twice a week in cities like Cajamarca and Celendin.

On Thursday, during the World Water Day gathering, police in riot gear watched the peaceful demonstration from a distance. Local farmers chewed coca leaves as speakers from various organizations and environmental groups took turns rallying up the crowd.

A demonstration that took place last November turned tragic when armed forces tear-gassed and fired upon protesters, resulting in 17 injuries. Standing before graphic photographs of bruised limbs and bullet wounds from the incident, Ana Bueno Abanto, director of La Casa de las Lagunas, clenched a handful of soil and asked the audience to remember the violence.

“Rifles have been used against people that have tried to defend this land that I hold here in my hand,” she said. “This land, our land, was disrespected on that day of violence and no matter how many metals and precious minerals are beneath this land, we as a community will always protect it and make sure it is respected.”

Reanalyzing a Controversial Study

In response to the civil unrest, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala declared a 60-day state of emergency in Cajamarca and increased military presence in the region. Shortly after, Newmont halted work on the Conga site and proposed an external review of the environmental impact study that originally gave the project a green light.

Following Newmont’s suggestion, the Peruvian government appointed three consultants from Spain and Portugal last month to review the study and gave them 40 days to present their findings. Results will be publicized in April, but Cajamarca Regional Vice President César Aliaga Díaz said he has little confidence in the outcome.

“Here in Cajamarca, few people take this review seriously,” Díaz said. “The study did not have any methodology or serious scientific approach. It’s so bad that we simply need to throw it out and make a new one. Reviewing this ten-thousand page study in forty days cannot possibly work.”

Díaz also pointed out the environmental impact study was approved by Felipe Ramirez del Pino, general director of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, who previously held high-level positions in Newmont projects from 2006 to 2009.

Regardless of the perceived flaws with the study, Peru’s national government has been pushing the project forward without heeding the region’s complaints. In October, Cajamarca’s Regional President Gregorio Santos joined the opposition against Conga by calling on a general strike. Then Santos’ government passed Regional Ordinance 036 on Dec. 5, 2011. The ordinance protects land on the proposed mining site from development and is presently being challenged in court for its constitutionality.

With its new anti-mining stance, Díaz said Cajamarca’s regional government has come under national scrutiny, both from the media and from politicians in Lima, but Díaz said his government is simply “listening to the voice of the people: Conga will not go.” He insists Cajamarca residents are fed up with foreign mining companies exploiting their resources, polluting their water and, all the while, exporting the majority of the profits.

Digging in Social Discontent

RallyAnti-mining sentiment has been growing in the region ever since Newmont opened its Yanacocha gold mine just outside Cajamarca in 1993. The mine promised to increase employment and improve living standards for Cajamarcan residents, but few locals were hired by Yanacocha and many became frustrated as they watched foreigners and Peruvians from different regions get high-paying positions.

“When Yanacocha opened, most Cajamarcan residents saw little change in their lives,” said Aldo Santos Aries, regional coordinator for Servicios Educativos Rurales. “The main change was that they had less access to clean water because of the mine’s intensive use of the region’s water resources.”

“The Conga project is technically an expansion of Yanacocha mine,” he continued. “And aside from Yanacocha employees and businesses related to the project, few people in Cajamarca have been happy to have the mine here. They want to see Newmont leave, not expand.”

For the past two decades, Yanacocha sparked both a mining boom and a population boom in the region. According to the regional health service’s study, “Cajamarca: Analysis of the Health Situation 2010,” Cajamarca’s urban population grew by 45.9 percent between 1993 and 2007.

Seemingly overnight, a region that was traditionally centered around agriculture changed into a major mining district. According to the same health study, 45.5 percent of the land in Cajamarca was owned by mining companies in 2010.

Cajamarcan activist, priest and politician Marco Arana Zegarra writes in his essay, “Water and Mining in Cajamarca: Defending the Right to Water” [Agua y Mineria en Cajamarca - Defendiendo El Derecho al Agua], that the mining industry has spurred impressive economic growth in Cajamarca, but due to lack of regulation, low taxes and low labor costs, the region remains one of the world’s cheapest areas to extract gold. The cost of gold production in Yanacocha costs an average $110 US per oz. and is sold on the market for about $500 US per oz.

From 1996 to 2000, some of the mine’s most productive years, Arana also writes that the amount of chronically malnourished children in the region increased from 38.7 percent to 42.8 percent with over 75 percent of the population living in poverty.

During the same period, the Cajamarca region experienced a loss of fresh water trout and half its native bird species. Cases of stomach cancer also increased among rural populations. Various environmental studies have suggested the new ailments may be caused by heavy metal waste from mining activities.

Fragile Environment, Limited Water Sources

According to Laura Lucio, engineer for the Group of Formation and Intervention for Sustainable Development (GRUFIDES) environmental organization in Cajamarca, Conga’s main threat revolves around the fragile ecosystems and access to potable water. The Conga mine estimates it will use more than two million cubic meters of fresh water a year, drying five lakes in the process and drastically reducing the water sources in the region.

“The main problem is the terrain. We are talking about high altitude wetlands and marshes, with subterranean waters very close to the surface,” Lucio said. “The area is not made for mining activities. As they dig into the ground, they will have to continuously extract the subterranean waters which supply the whole region’s drinking water.”

In response to the concerns, the Conga project claims it will include four reservoirs, three of which will be constructed to supply potable water for the population’s consumption.

“Basically, our water is being foreign-owned and privatized right before our eyes. Without boundaries, the mine will have the full power over potable water,” Lucio said.

Another environmental dilemma is the risk of groundwater contamination. Water treatment plants will be built on the Conga site, but according to “Conga Mine, Peru: Comments on the Environmental Impact Assessment and Related Issues,” an independent study by Dr. Robert Moran, these plants will not be sufficient to handle the amount of contaminated water being produced by mining operations.

“If the Conga project must pump 379 liters per second, that implies treating roughly 1.4 Million liters per hour, which far exceeds the capacity of the treatment plant,” Moran wrote. “Clearly the proposed plant could not treat all of this water, nor would it be treated to chemical quality suitable for human consumption of aquatic life purposes.”

“In the United States it would not be legally allowable to approve the operating permits for a site requiring perpetual water treatment,” he continues.

A Handful of Water

At the conclusion of Thursday’s World Water Day gathering, protesters walked to shores of Laguna Azul, cupped the water in their hands, and drank it down. Speakers rallied up the crowd, vowing for a long fight to protect their land and water from another gold mining operations, and then, finally, the protest ended as it had begun, with the singing of the Tinkari band’s, “¡Agua sí! ¡Oro no!”

“El Oro en estas Lagunas, ya lo quieren explotar. Nosotros Cajamarquinos no lo vamos a dejar.”
[The gold in these lakes, they want to exploit it. We the Cajamarcans, we aren’t going to leave it.”]

Protestors Shut Down Monsanto's California Office

A recent two-day protest in Northern California against genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) led to the complete shutdown of a Monsanto corporate office for an entire day, according to reports. On Friday, March 16, 2012, activists affiliated with the Global Days of Action to Shut Down Monsanto began rallying in front of the Davis, Calif., office of Monsanto, where they held up banners, gave speeches, and set up tents in front of the Monsanto building on Fifth Street, which caused the biotech giant to shutter its operations.

"In the course of the two-day event, activists held up signs, gave speeches to inform and inspire each other and solidify the movement, drafted a resolution about Monsanto with many proposed solutions to be presented to the California legislature, celebrated each other and went "freeway blogging" - displaying a large hand made banner that said, "Shut Down Monsanto" on the Pole Line Road overpass over I-80," writes Mark Graham of Food Freedom. "Thousands of drivers were shown this message."

Sponsored by The Anti-Monsanto Project, the Peace & Freedom Party, and various chapters of the Occupy movement from around Northern California, the weekend rally in Davis serves as a template for activists in other cities to follow. All it took to shut down Monsanto, after all, was a few dozen people standing in front of the building -- imagine what hundreds, or even thousands, of activists could together accomplish?

Awareness about GMOs and the fact that they continue to remain unlabeled in the American food supply is becoming a forefront issue in the public spotlight. And evidence of this is being fleshed out in California, Connecticut, Washington and nearly a dozen other states where mandatory GMO labeling laws have been proposed or are currently making their way through the legislative process.