Ursache & Wirkung
"Wer die Ursache nicht kennt, nennt die Wirkung Zufall" Werner Mitsch
Donnerstag, 28. August 2014
Mittwoch, 27. August 2014
Montag, 25. August 2014
Samstag, 23. August 2014
Donnerstag, 21. August 2014
Mittwoch, 20. August 2014
Dienstag, 19. August 2014
Activist Post: The New Ulster: The Nature and Purpose of The State of Israel #news
Activist Post: The New Ulster: The Nature and Purpose of The State of Israel #News
The New Ulster: The Nature and Purpose of The State of Israel
Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
Since the inception of the Israeli state and its official formalization in 1948, Israel has baffled the world with its seeming irrational aggression, hypocrisy, brutality, and willingness to entirely ignore international law. Indeed, Israel is well-known for thumbing its nose at even the basic etiquette for international relations.
Israel’s sordid history – that of its connections to mega-rich banking families like the Rothschilds, racism, double-edged alliances, and genocide – has caused it to, therefore, be the target of many researchers and activists that see it as the sole source of evil upon the earth. Zionist Christians (mostly those in the West), have generally pledged religious allegiance to Israel under the pretext of supporting “God’s Chosen People” and Biblical prophecy. Still others pretend that Israel is the absolute pinnacle of the power structure and condemn Jews as responsible for all the horrors of the world.
Of course, none of these representations are accurate.
Yet, with virtually the entire Middle East erupting in flames, it is important to understand the purpose of the Israeli state as well as the reasons for its seeming irrationality and unmitigated aggression against its immediate and regional neighbors.
In his article entitled, “Beware: Israel the Eager Provocateur,” Tony Cartalucci, points out that Israel “is a stunted, militaristic faux-state that depends entirely on the West for its continued existence.” Cartalucci also accurately describes Israel as a “Forward Operating Base” for a greater power above it.
The New Ulster: The Nature and Purpose of The State of Israel
Brandon TurbevilleActivist Post
Since the inception of the Israeli state and its official formalization in 1948, Israel has baffled the world with its seeming irrational aggression, hypocrisy, brutality, and willingness to entirely ignore international law. Indeed, Israel is well-known for thumbing its nose at even the basic etiquette for international relations.
Israel’s sordid history – that of its connections to mega-rich banking families like the Rothschilds, racism, double-edged alliances, and genocide – has caused it to, therefore, be the target of many researchers and activists that see it as the sole source of evil upon the earth. Zionist Christians (mostly those in the West), have generally pledged religious allegiance to Israel under the pretext of supporting “God’s Chosen People” and Biblical prophecy. Still others pretend that Israel is the absolute pinnacle of the power structure and condemn Jews as responsible for all the horrors of the world.
Of course, none of these representations are accurate.
Yet, with virtually the entire Middle East erupting in flames, it is important to understand the purpose of the Israeli state as well as the reasons for its seeming irrationality and unmitigated aggression against its immediate and regional neighbors.
In his article entitled, “Beware: Israel the Eager Provocateur,” Tony Cartalucci, points out that Israel “is a stunted, militaristic faux-state that depends entirely on the West for its continued existence.” Cartalucci also accurately describes Israel as a “Forward Operating Base” for a greater power above it.
Cartalucci writes,
As Conn Hallinan wrote for Foreign Policy In Focus, “When British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour issued his famous 1917 Declaration guaranteeing a “homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine, he was less concerned with righting a two thousand year old wrong than creating divisions that would serve growing British interests in the Middle East.”
Indeed, the righting of an alleged two-thousand-year-old wrong was not even a consideration among the British aristocrats, bankers, and the equivalent parties of other governments and institutions. This mythical righting of a wrong was merely a cover story provided to the public for propaganda purposes. This propaganda was aimed particularly at those of religious backgrounds.
It is important to note, of course, that the narrative being provided by the architects of Israel were entirely new to these religions and that it was not a philosophy that was adhered to or acknowledged in any of these faiths, at least not in the way it was presented.
As such, Israel's constant and otherwise irrational belligerence makes perfect sense. An FOB's priorities are not prosperity and peace as would a nation's, but rather to engage forward into enemy territory. The trick over the years has been to portray Israel as a nation, while propping up its constant belligerence and aggression as "self-defense." To keep this illusion in motion, Israel and its regional and Western collaborators have even created full-time enemies, including Hamas itself - a creation of Israeli intelligence and to this day primarily propped up by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which are defacto regional partners with the West and of course Israel itself.While a Forward Operating Base (FOB) is one way to describe Israel, it is also much more than simply a territorial staging ground for Western imperialist motives. It is, in fact, a carefully constructed destabilization organ that was planned an implemented long ago for the purpose of dividing and conquering the entire Middle East as well as for the purpose of fostering and initiating a global military confrontation between major world powers and the world’s three major religions – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
As Conn Hallinan wrote for Foreign Policy In Focus, “When British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour issued his famous 1917 Declaration guaranteeing a “homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine, he was less concerned with righting a two thousand year old wrong than creating divisions that would serve growing British interests in the Middle East.”
Indeed, the righting of an alleged two-thousand-year-old wrong was not even a consideration among the British aristocrats, bankers, and the equivalent parties of other governments and institutions. This mythical righting of a wrong was merely a cover story provided to the public for propaganda purposes. This propaganda was aimed particularly at those of religious backgrounds.
It is important to note, of course, that the narrative being provided by the architects of Israel were entirely new to these religions and that it was not a philosophy that was adhered to or acknowledged in any of these faiths, at least not in the way it was presented.
For instance, Sir Ronald Storrs, the first governor of Jerusalem for the British empire wrote in his memoirs in 1937 that Israel and the mythical “Jewish Homeland” would be nothing more than a pit of destabilization. Storrs stated that “Even though the land could not yet absorb sixteen millions, nor even eight, enough could return, if not to form The Jewish State (which a few extremists publicly demanded), at least to prove that the enterprise was one that blessed him that gave as well as him that took by forming for England “a little Jewish Ulster” in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.”[1]
Ulster, of course, was the original Israel.
Ulster was a place in Northern Ireland where, in 1609, the English King Charles I concocted a plan (presumably not on his own) to further weaken the Irish by the tried and true “divide and conquer” mechanism. He marched forward with this plan by removing the O’Donnell and O’Neill clans from the area and moving in around 20,000 Scottish and English Protestants and forming the plantation of Ulster in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland.
Because of the structure of Ulster, religious tension became inflamed. Division between religious denominations and sects became the order of the day, while the true enemy – Britain – took a back seat in the minds of those squabbling over religious differences and those who received preferential beggar status compared to those who did not.
Ulster was essentially divided into two societies - the Protestants who were “first class” and the native Catholics who were considered and treated as “second class.” The class difference was, of course, sanctioned and enforced by the Crown. Although, after a bit of time, native Irish Catholics were allowed to enter Ulster for purposes of working the land, their presence was entirely labor-based.
Protestants were also granted the “Ulster Privilege,” which afforded them special access to land and lower rent. Ulster Privilege, incidentally, was a concept that was quite similar to the Israeli/Palestinian arrangement today.
In Ireland, resentment between the religious groups could not help but arise as the result of the mandated social structure in Ulster and that, of course, is precisely what happened.
Finally, the religious divisions that resulted from the establishment of Ulster were codified into law with the enactment of the Penal Laws of 1692. These laws denied Catholics any civil rights, removed their ability to sign contracts, become lawyers, or hire more than two apprentices. It is also important to note that the laws were extended to Protestants who intermarried with Catholics.
“In essence,” Hallinan writes, “they insured that Catholics would remain poor, powerless, and locked out of the modern world.” These laws had reverberations that are still being felt in Ireland today.
Even Edmund Burke once commented that the laws were “A machine of wide and elaborate contrivance and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
Nevertheless, once the British implemented the plan of religious tension and division, it was only a matter of time before the nation of Ireland was subdued and the conquest of the country was solidified. It was a tactic that the British would use successfully throughout its empire across the world.
Of course, these laws, as well as a number of other mandates and societal practices are themselves very similar to the current mechanics of Israel. As Conn Hallinan writes,
The Israeli Knesset recently prevented Palestinians married to Arab Israelis from acquiring citizenship, a page lifted almost directly from the 1692 laws. Israeli human rights activist Yael Stein called the action “racist,” and Knesset member Zeeva Galon said it denied “the fundamental right of Arab Israelis to start families.” Even the U.S. is uncomfortable with the legislation. “The new law,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Phillip Reeker, “singles out one group for different treatment than others.”
In the end, and with all of this in mind, the purpose and nature of the settler state of Israel is more easily understood. Simply put, Zionism is not the center of the conspiratorial spider web, it is just another strand of it.
The sole purpose of Israel is not to create a “Jewish” state, but to create a “Jewish” Ulster for the purposes of dividing Christians, Muslims, and Jews against one another and creating a center of constant tension in the Middle East.
By enacting its own reign of terror against Palestinians, controlling and directing fanatical Muslim extremist groups throughout the Middle East, conning Western Christians into supporting military action in the Middle East under the guise of “protecting Israel against its hostile enemies,” and, all the while, doing so under the cover of a “Jewish” state, Israel stands as the greatest destabilizing force in the entire Middle East.
Notes:
[1] Storrs, Sir Ronald. The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs. GP Putnam’s Sons. New York. 1937. P. 364. https://archive.org/stream/memoirsofsirrona001290mbp#page/n7/mode/2up
Recently from Brandon Turbeville:
Ulster, of course, was the original Israel.
Ulster was a place in Northern Ireland where, in 1609, the English King Charles I concocted a plan (presumably not on his own) to further weaken the Irish by the tried and true “divide and conquer” mechanism. He marched forward with this plan by removing the O’Donnell and O’Neill clans from the area and moving in around 20,000 Scottish and English Protestants and forming the plantation of Ulster in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland.
Because of the structure of Ulster, religious tension became inflamed. Division between religious denominations and sects became the order of the day, while the true enemy – Britain – took a back seat in the minds of those squabbling over religious differences and those who received preferential beggar status compared to those who did not.
Ulster was essentially divided into two societies - the Protestants who were “first class” and the native Catholics who were considered and treated as “second class.” The class difference was, of course, sanctioned and enforced by the Crown. Although, after a bit of time, native Irish Catholics were allowed to enter Ulster for purposes of working the land, their presence was entirely labor-based.
Protestants were also granted the “Ulster Privilege,” which afforded them special access to land and lower rent. Ulster Privilege, incidentally, was a concept that was quite similar to the Israeli/Palestinian arrangement today.
In Ireland, resentment between the religious groups could not help but arise as the result of the mandated social structure in Ulster and that, of course, is precisely what happened.
Finally, the religious divisions that resulted from the establishment of Ulster were codified into law with the enactment of the Penal Laws of 1692. These laws denied Catholics any civil rights, removed their ability to sign contracts, become lawyers, or hire more than two apprentices. It is also important to note that the laws were extended to Protestants who intermarried with Catholics.
“In essence,” Hallinan writes, “they insured that Catholics would remain poor, powerless, and locked out of the modern world.” These laws had reverberations that are still being felt in Ireland today.
Even Edmund Burke once commented that the laws were “A machine of wide and elaborate contrivance and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
Nevertheless, once the British implemented the plan of religious tension and division, it was only a matter of time before the nation of Ireland was subdued and the conquest of the country was solidified. It was a tactic that the British would use successfully throughout its empire across the world.
Of course, these laws, as well as a number of other mandates and societal practices are themselves very similar to the current mechanics of Israel. As Conn Hallinan writes,
It would appear the Israelis have paid close attention to English colonial policy because their policies in the Occupied Territories bear a distressing resemblance to Ireland under the Penal Laws.
The Israeli Knesset recently prevented Palestinians married to Arab Israelis from acquiring citizenship, a page lifted almost directly from the 1692 laws. Israeli human rights activist Yael Stein called the action “racist,” and Knesset member Zeeva Galon said it denied “the fundamental right of Arab Israelis to start families.” Even the U.S. is uncomfortable with the legislation. “The new law,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Phillip Reeker, “singles out one group for different treatment than others.”
Which, of course, was the whole point.
[...]
As the penal laws impoverished the Irish, so do Israeli policies impoverish the Palestinians and keep them an underdeveloped pool of cheap labor. According to the United Nations, unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza is over 50 percent, and Palestinians are among the poorest people on the planet.
Any efforts by the Palestinians to build their own independent economic base are smothered by a network of walls, settler-exclusive roads and checkpoints. It is little different than British imperial policy in India, which systematically dismantled the Indian textile industry so that English cloth could clothe the sub-continent without competition.
Divide and conquer was 19th and early 20th century colonialism’s single most successful tactic of domination. It was also a disaster, one which still echoes in civil wars and regional tensions across the globe. This latter lesson does not appear to be one the Israelis have paid much attention to. As a system of rule, division and privilege may work in the short run, but over time it engenders nothing but hatred.Hallinan is correct to draw such parallels between Ulster and Israel. However, it is incorrect to assert that the Israelis have not paid attention to the fact that “divide and rule” is a strategy that ends in civil and sometimes regional wars. This, unfortunately, is the goal of Israel’s existence.
In the end, and with all of this in mind, the purpose and nature of the settler state of Israel is more easily understood. Simply put, Zionism is not the center of the conspiratorial spider web, it is just another strand of it.
The sole purpose of Israel is not to create a “Jewish” state, but to create a “Jewish” Ulster for the purposes of dividing Christians, Muslims, and Jews against one another and creating a center of constant tension in the Middle East.
By enacting its own reign of terror against Palestinians, controlling and directing fanatical Muslim extremist groups throughout the Middle East, conning Western Christians into supporting military action in the Middle East under the guise of “protecting Israel against its hostile enemies,” and, all the while, doing so under the cover of a “Jewish” state, Israel stands as the greatest destabilizing force in the entire Middle East.
Notes:
[1] Storrs, Sir Ronald. The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs. GP Putnam’s Sons. New York. 1937. P. 364. https://archive.org/stream/memoirsofsirrona001290mbp#page/n7/mode/2up
Recently from Brandon Turbeville:
- Syrian Kurds, Not U.S. Military, Rescued Trapped Yazidis In Iraq
- U.S. Knew About 9/11 Warning, Staged Egypt Revolution: Ex Interior Minister
- NY State Candidate for Governor Arrested For Filming Police
Montag, 18. August 2014
Sonntag, 17. August 2014
Samstag, 16. August 2014
ALERT! Experts Warn 'Ebola' Can Be Turned Into A 'Bioweapon'
DA GOOGLE + MEINEN KOMMENTAR ZENSIERT HAT (angeblich würde es gegen bestimmte Richtlinien verstößen O_O) VERÖFFENTLICHE ICH ES HIER!
MY COMMENT ON GOOGLE + HAS BEEN CENSORED THEREFOR I POST IT HERE!
Ebola is a Bioweapon, its name is MARV.
"Marburgvirus (/ˈmɑrbərɡ ˈvaɪrəs/ MAR-bərg VY-rəs) is a hemorrhagic fever virus first noticed and described during small epidemics in the German cities Marburg and Frankfurt and the Yugoslavian capital Belgrade in the 1960s. Workers were accidentally exposed to tissues of infected grivets (Chlorocebus aethiops) at the city's former main industrial plant, the Behringwerke, then part of Hoechst, and today of CSL Behring. During these outbreaks, 31 people became infected and seven of them died. Marburg virus (MARV) causes severe disease in humans and nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fever.
The Soviet Union had an extensive offensive and defensive biological weapons program that included MARV.
The filoviruses Ebola virus (EBOV), Sudan virus (SUDV), Marburg virus (MARV), and Ravn virus (RAVV) are Biosafety Level 4 agents." Wikipedia
"The genera Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus were originally classified as the species of the now-obsolete Filovirus genus. In March, 1998, the Vertebrate Virus Subcommittee proposed in the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) to change the Filovirus genus to the Filoviridae family with two specific genera: Ebola-like viruses and Marburg-like viruses. This proposal was implemented in Washington, D.C., as of April, 2001 and in Paris as of July, 2002. In 2000, another proposal was made in Washington, D.C., to change the "-like viruses" to "-virus" resulting in today's Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus." Wikipedia
-Clin Vaccine Immunol. Apr 2006:
"First, there have recently been large outbreaks of hemorrhagic fevers caused by EBOV (Ebola hemorrhagic fever [EHF]) and MARV (Marburg hemorrhagic fever [MHF]) in Africa; EHF outbreaks occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda in 1995 and 2000, respectively, and MHF outbreaks occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998-1999 and in Angola in 2004-2005." =>Clin Vaccine Immunol. Apr 2006
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1459631/
Nature Reviews Immunology 7, 556-567 (July 2007):
"The filoviruses Ebola and Marburg have emerged in the past decade from relative obscurity to serve now as archetypes for some of the more intriguing and daunting challenges posed by such agents. Public imagination is captured by deadly outbreaks of these viruses and reinforced by the specter of bioterrorism. As research on these agents has accelerated, it has been found increasingly that filoviruses use a combination of familiar and apparently new ways to baffle and battle the immune system."
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v7/n7/full/nri2098.html
=>"have emerged in the past decade from relative obscurity..." O_O
NOW LETS DO OUR MATH:
First outbreaks of characterised Ebola species:
-Marburg-virus (MARV) = August 1967 (Marburg, Germany / Hoechst Laboratories)
-Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOV) = August 1976 (Yambuku, Zaire / Schoolteacher)
-Sudan ebolavirus (SEBOV) = emerged in 1976 (Nzara, Sudan / factory workers)
-Reston ebolavirus (REBOV) = 1989 (Reston, Virginia USA /Hazleton Laboratories)
-Côte d'Ivoire ebolavirus (CIEBOV) = 1994 (Ivory Cost, Africa/Chimpanzees and scientists)
-Bundibugyo ebolavirus = November 24, 2007, (Bundibugyo District is a district in Western Uganda, bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo.) After confirmation of samples tested by the United States National Reference Laboratories and the CDC, confirmed the presence of the new species. On 20 February 2008, the Uganda Ministry officially announced the end of the epidemic in Bundibugyo, with the last infected person discharged on 8 January 2008.
=>"have emerged in the past decade from relative obscurity..." O_O my ass...
-And Billyboy Gates is messing around in Africa since 1997
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/History
-And the US Military since:
"The United States military has been involved with Africa for more than two centuries, beginning with the Barbary Wars of 1801-05 and 1815, continuing to the World War II North Africa Campaign to the present day."
http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Article/6220/fact-sheet-history-of-us-military-involvement-in-a
And if you need some, here you can purchase your personal relevant viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) viruses:
"IBT Bioservices offers the most comprehensive collection of commercially available reagents to enhance your filovirus vaccine, therapeutic, and diagnostic research. The various polyclonal antibody, monoclonal antibody, and recombinant protein products shown below focus on the most relevant viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) viruses. These products are useful tools for a number of methods including ELISA, western blot and immunofluorescence. Ask about discounts for bulk purchases."
http://ibtbioservices.com/index.php/product-and-reagents/ebola-and-marburg-products
Conclusion: The Powers are using this dubious "outbreak" a) for shock & awe to sell their shitty corrupted vaccines, b) to decieve the public from Ukraine, Syria, Iraq (ISIS) and the Israel Gaza Holocaust.
Problem-Reaction-Solution...nothing new under the sun...
This is no outbreak this is a FARCE!!
Freitag, 15. August 2014
Cops Gone Wild - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Cops Gone Wild - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Paul Craig Roberts
Ferguson, Mo. is a small overwhelmingly black town whose government and police are white. The Ferguson police murdered an 18 year old black kid who has his hands over his head. Moreover, it is unclear that the kid had committed any offense. If you take a look at the photo of the three goon thugs pointing military rifles in his face at point blank range, any one of the over-sized goons unarmed could have restrained the small kid.
So what did the police goons do? They shot him to death.
This is murder. There is no question whatsoever that it is murder. But it will be covered up by the white government and the white police force if protests are limited to the black
small town population of Ferguson. Who cares about them? Justice? That’s only for the mega-rich.
There is another astonishing aspect to the murder. Unarmed protesters in Ferguson are confronting a small town police force that is as well or better armed than America’s combat troops on battlefields in countries invaded by Washington. The only reason there is any trouble in Ferguson is that the cops murdered in cold blood a kid without cause or justification, and the black community knows that the white murderer will be given a pass by the white government. The part-time black US Attorney General, Eric Holder, has not sent in the Feds to investigate.
It is not only in Ferguson that goon thug cops murder people and they don’t murder only blacks. Whites get it also. There are a huge number of murders by police in “the home of liberty and democracy.” During the course of Washington’s war in Iraq, American police murdered more innocent American civilians than America lost troops in the war!
The American police murder so many civilians that it would take several thick volumes to record the police atrocities. The ones mentioned in this article are merely among the most recent that are reported.
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports that a white 37-year old woman having a reaction to prescribed medication tried to call 911 for help but got instead a police goon thug who shot her dead up against the wall in her own bedroom. The police have put out the fake story that the woman in medical distress threatened the goon thug with a weapon.
The newspaper reports that the woman’s husband also called 911, but fails to report that the husband said that he was headed home and would see that the emergency was dealt with only medically and not to send any police. But the goon thugs couldn’t miss the opportunity to murder another innocent American civilian.
Police victims have no rights, and in the vast majority of cases neither do the families of the murdered police victims. Compensation to the families of murdered police victims is rare as is accountability for the police murderers. In America a police badge is a license to murder.
During the past decade, perhaps longer, the federal government has systematically militarized local and state police forces in all 50 states. The police have been trained by federally contracted trainers to regard the American public as the enemy. The police are trained that they must not take the risk of encountering members of the public on a trusting basis, but must regard the public as armed and determined to murder the police.
I have observed on a number of occasions fully militarily equipped police training by 30 of them lining up and emptying high capacity magazines at the same target. Like most small towns in America, Doraville, Georgia, population 8,500, has a SWAT team armed with the weapons of the US military.
Congress should hold hearings to determine which federal budget was used to train state and local police to murder Americans. America has been at war for 13 years at vast costs against Muslims deemed to be a threat to our safety; yet American police have murdered more Americans than we lost in the Iraq war.
We need to discover who trained our police to murder us, and we must hold both the criminals responsible for the “training” and the criminals in the government who financed the “training.”
The most fatal mistake that any American can make is to call the police.
With permission I republish my contribution to the summer issue of Gerald Celente’s Trends Journal:
Mayor Lindsay established a review board by executive order, but rising opposition forced the supporters of the review board to put it to a vote. Fear had done its job, and the review board was abolished by a vote of 63 percent against and 36 percent in favor. This from “liberal New York.”
In the half-century that has passed, gratuitous police violence has spread to the public in general. Today it is not only blacks and Hispanics who experience police brutality. Everyone suffers from it. Being white is no longer a protection. In a recent column, “Call the Cops at Your Peril,” I reported a few of the recent atrocities police have committed against the public. Ninety-three-year-old Pearlie Golden was shot down in her front yard in Hearne, Texas. In Miami, 23 police officers fired 377 bullets, literally blowing away two men trapped inside a wrecked car. The police were under no threat whatsoever from the 93-year-old woman or from the two men trapped inside a wrecked car. In Cornelia, Georgia, a SWAT team made a no-knock entry at 3 a.m. and threw a concussion grenade into a baby’s crib. The grenade blew up in the baby’s face, leaving him disfigured, unable to breathe without a ventilator, and with a 50 percent chance of survival. According to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, the raid produced no drugs, no weapons, no bundles of cash, and no suspected drug dealer. It was just another of the thousands of mistakes routinely made by SWAT goons who put American citizens at risk every time they break unannounced into a home, usually a wrong address.
Another police favorite is to humiliate their arrested victim, especially women, by stripping them naked. The abuse of women has become routine. In a recent case, a 31-year-old white mother of four in New Albany, Indiana, was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after a fight with her estranged husband. In police parlance, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest mean that the woman protested the false arrest and raised her voice. As most Americans have no idea about the police, they are shocked and disbelieving when they experience a police encounter. Until they have an encounter with the police, they are big supporters of the police. Unable to believe what was happening to her, she was stripped of her clothing by two male and two female cops, paraded around the jail naked in front of the police, and thrown naked into a cell. She became hysterical as a result of this treatment. Enjoying their torment of their victim, the cops pepper sprayed her. The county sheriff said that he does not believe jail policies or procedures were violated. In other words, the sheriff admitted that abuse, humiliation and excessive use of force are routine.
http://www.infowars.com/cops-strip-parade-pepper-spray-woman-and-lock-her-in-cell-for-7-hours/ Also: http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/tabitha-gentry/
As I write, I googled “videos of US police brutality” and 7,660,000 results appeared in 0.31 seconds. There are more cases of gratuitous police violence, almost always against the innocent, than a person can absorb in a lifetime. Police body slam elderly infirm people, taser cripples in wheel chairs, pepper spray, taser, and mace kids, young women, and mothers with babes in their arms. Just the other day police shot and killed a 13-year-old kid who was walking down the street with a toy rifle doing no harm to anyone. Only the goon cops regarded the 13-year-old as a threat. The goon cops simply couldn’t let the opportunity pass to experience the thrill of killing a person.
We see the same thing in the US military video released by Bradley Manning of the US helicopter gunship murdering journalists and citizens walking peacefully along a street and then murdering a father with two babies who stopped to help the wounded. Nothing happened to the murderers, but Bradley Manning was imprisoned for telling on them.
We are at the point that the police try to murder teenagers making out in a parked car. http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/no_author/cop-shoots-teenage-couple/
We have become a killer society, and the US government is the world’s leading killer.
Moreover, the police are unaccountable. They can murder with impunity, but if you even accidentally or reflexively touch one of them, it is off to prison with you if you survive the beating. Cecily McMillan, about whom I recently wrote, was an Occupy protester. Her breasts were seized from behind by a cop. Reflexively, her elbow came up as she swung around and her elbow hit the cop. Recently a cowardly or corrupt jury, egged on by a corrupt judge and prosecutor, found her guilty of assaulting an officer and she was sentenced to prison. Nothing happened to the cop who sexually assaulted and falsely arrested her.
Prosecutors are interested in convictions, not justice. Prosecutors routinely indict the innocent on the basis of the false charges brought by police, and judges often are complicit in the false convictions. No honest prosecutor would have brought the case against Cecily McMillan. Her trial was a political trial, and her conviction was a foregone conclusion. The purpose was to send the message that regardless of constitutional rights, protests against the Establishment are not permitted. The judge guaranteed her conviction by ruling that no evidence of the injury to her breast could be presented in her defense and that the jurors could not be informed of the arresting officer’s record of excessive use of force and abuse of citizens. The jury was unwilling to stand up for an innocent person. Instead of serving justice, the jury served the corrupt purpose of the police state.
See http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Betrayal-of-Cecily-McM-by-Marc-Ash-Cecily-Mcmillan_Jury_Justice_Political-140603-414.html and http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/21/justice-dead-amerika/
Whatever the police do, seldom do they suffer any consequences. As a result they have become more bold and more violent. Any encounter with the American police is a dangerous one.
The “war on terror” has removed any remaining constraints on police. The federal government has militarized state and local police and equipped them as if they were a military force. The police are trained to regard the public as a danger and to take no risk with their lives when confronting citizens. The police are taught that politely asking questions in order to arrive at an assessment of a situation could expose them to danger and that they should avoid all risk to themselves by dominating the situation with force just as an army or marine unit would do when confronting an enemy.
I have witnessed training exercises at which 30 police officers line up and empty high capacity magazines at the same target. We are talking about 450 shots in a few seconds at one head-sized target. It was this type of training that resulted in 23 cops pouring 377 bullets into two men in Miami, one of whom was totally innocent of any charges.
http://rt.com/usa/164816-american-police-militarization-war/
It once was the case that joining the police force implied low-level risk. An officer could, and occasionally did, die in performing his duty. Today no level of risk is acceptable for police. Therefore, all risk has been shifted to the public anytime members of the public have encounters, mistaken or not, with the police. Consequently, police kill far more innocent members of the public than criminals kill police. The police have become like Wall Street and the federal government. The police serve no public interest.
When I was growing up in the forties and fifties, we understood that the police force attracted bullies because of the power of the badge, but unlike today the police did not have carte blanche. In the forties and fifties the American people had not been reduced to powerlessness or to the sheeple that they are today. Newspapers were still independently owned and served as a constraint on police power. Blacks did not always get this protection, but in large southern cities, such as Atlanta, where Ralph McGill was editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, blacks, too, had the protection of the press. I remember the first civil rights march in Atlanta. There were no police and no dogs set on the marchers. I know because I was there.
Bullies were one thing, but there was not the hostility toward the public that is ingrained in police training today. Standing up for one’s constitutional rights in a police encounter today is a perfect way to enrage a bully whose authority is questioned. The likely result is a beating and arrest. Subservience is the easiest way to survive a police encounter. You might be a brain surgeon or a former high government official and the cop might be someone who barely made it out of high school. But if you want to get out of it without damage to your body and charges on your record, act like a peasant confronted by a baron, earl or duke centuries ago. This is America today.
Anything else and you might be history.
So, are police review boards the answer? Apparently not. In 1993, 27 years after New York Mayor Lindsay’s failed attempt to impose some accountability on police, Mayor David Dinkins established the largely powerless Civilian Complaint Review Board. The police rose up in opposition and were egged on by Rudy Giuliani, who when he became mayor gave the police carte blanche. White New Yorkers applauded Giuliani. Finally, they were safe again — as long as they did not have a run-in with the police or the SWAT team didn’t go to the wrong address, perhaps a more likely occurrence than a criminal showing up at the door.
A number of cities today have review boards. Some have powers. Most don’t. Even those with powers have been made hesitant to use them. When terror is such a threat that the country remains on Orange Alert, one step below Red Alert, for years, only a terrorist-loving liberal-pinko-commie would want to restrain the police.
As long as the US remains in the hands of the Establishment, police review boards will be ineffective. Wikipedia reports that in 2006, eight years ago, the NY Civilian Complaint Review Board received 7,699 complaints, approximately 6% resulted in a “substantiated disposition.” In other words, 94% of the cases went nowhere.
The police have been set loose on us by “law and order” conservatives and by the “war on terror.” The police are doing us far more damage than are the criminals and the terrorists.
It remains to be seen whether Americans survive their police.
In the meantime the sheeple will continue to pay the salaries of those who pose the greatest threat to them.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
Cops Gone Wild
Paul Craig Roberts
Ferguson, Mo. is a small overwhelmingly black town whose government and police are white. The Ferguson police murdered an 18 year old black kid who has his hands over his head. Moreover, it is unclear that the kid had committed any offense. If you take a look at the photo of the three goon thugs pointing military rifles in his face at point blank range, any one of the over-sized goons unarmed could have restrained the small kid.
So what did the police goons do? They shot him to death.
This is murder. There is no question whatsoever that it is murder. But it will be covered up by the white government and the white police force if protests are limited to the black
small town population of Ferguson. Who cares about them? Justice? That’s only for the mega-rich.
There is another astonishing aspect to the murder. Unarmed protesters in Ferguson are confronting a small town police force that is as well or better armed than America’s combat troops on battlefields in countries invaded by Washington. The only reason there is any trouble in Ferguson is that the cops murdered in cold blood a kid without cause or justification, and the black community knows that the white murderer will be given a pass by the white government. The part-time black US Attorney General, Eric Holder, has not sent in the Feds to investigate.
It is not only in Ferguson that goon thug cops murder people and they don’t murder only blacks. Whites get it also. There are a huge number of murders by police in “the home of liberty and democracy.” During the course of Washington’s war in Iraq, American police murdered more innocent American civilians than America lost troops in the war!
The American police murder so many civilians that it would take several thick volumes to record the police atrocities. The ones mentioned in this article are merely among the most recent that are reported.
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports that a white 37-year old woman having a reaction to prescribed medication tried to call 911 for help but got instead a police goon thug who shot her dead up against the wall in her own bedroom. The police have put out the fake story that the woman in medical distress threatened the goon thug with a weapon.
The newspaper reports that the woman’s husband also called 911, but fails to report that the husband said that he was headed home and would see that the emergency was dealt with only medically and not to send any police. But the goon thugs couldn’t miss the opportunity to murder another innocent American civilian.
Police victims have no rights, and in the vast majority of cases neither do the families of the murdered police victims. Compensation to the families of murdered police victims is rare as is accountability for the police murderers. In America a police badge is a license to murder.
During the past decade, perhaps longer, the federal government has systematically militarized local and state police forces in all 50 states. The police have been trained by federally contracted trainers to regard the American public as the enemy. The police are trained that they must not take the risk of encountering members of the public on a trusting basis, but must regard the public as armed and determined to murder the police.
I have observed on a number of occasions fully militarily equipped police training by 30 of them lining up and emptying high capacity magazines at the same target. Like most small towns in America, Doraville, Georgia, population 8,500, has a SWAT team armed with the weapons of the US military.
Congress should hold hearings to determine which federal budget was used to train state and local police to murder Americans. America has been at war for 13 years at vast costs against Muslims deemed to be a threat to our safety; yet American police have murdered more Americans than we lost in the Iraq war.
We need to discover who trained our police to murder us, and we must hold both the criminals responsible for the “training” and the criminals in the government who financed the “training.”
The most fatal mistake that any American can make is to call the police.
With permission I republish my contribution to the summer issue of Gerald Celente’s Trends Journal:
Police Violence Against The Public Soars
In the 1960s, there was an effort in New York City to establish a civilian police review board. Complaints about police violence and harassment of black New Yorkers had grown to the point that the reality of the problem was obvious. New York Mayor John Lindsay was amenable, but conservatives led by William F. Buckley and the police rose up in arms. The conservative media called the police review board “the property of bleeding hearts and cop-haters.” Fear-mongering was used to rally white voters, who were told that the review board would coddle criminals, demoralize the police, and lead to an upsurge in crime.Mayor Lindsay established a review board by executive order, but rising opposition forced the supporters of the review board to put it to a vote. Fear had done its job, and the review board was abolished by a vote of 63 percent against and 36 percent in favor. This from “liberal New York.”
In the half-century that has passed, gratuitous police violence has spread to the public in general. Today it is not only blacks and Hispanics who experience police brutality. Everyone suffers from it. Being white is no longer a protection. In a recent column, “Call the Cops at Your Peril,” I reported a few of the recent atrocities police have committed against the public. Ninety-three-year-old Pearlie Golden was shot down in her front yard in Hearne, Texas. In Miami, 23 police officers fired 377 bullets, literally blowing away two men trapped inside a wrecked car. The police were under no threat whatsoever from the 93-year-old woman or from the two men trapped inside a wrecked car. In Cornelia, Georgia, a SWAT team made a no-knock entry at 3 a.m. and threw a concussion grenade into a baby’s crib. The grenade blew up in the baby’s face, leaving him disfigured, unable to breathe without a ventilator, and with a 50 percent chance of survival. According to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, the raid produced no drugs, no weapons, no bundles of cash, and no suspected drug dealer. It was just another of the thousands of mistakes routinely made by SWAT goons who put American citizens at risk every time they break unannounced into a home, usually a wrong address.
New tactic: Kill the dog
A police favorite is to murder the family’s pets. When the Middletons, ranchers in Rains County, Texas, called the sheriff’s department to report a burglary of their home and the theft of firearms, the first thing the deputy did when he arrived was to shoot the Middleton’s three-year-old, 40-pound Australian cattle dog, Candy, in the head. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, cops on a mistaken drug raid broke into the mayor’s home and murdered his two non-aggressive black Labradors while holding the mayor and his mother-in-law at gun point.Another police favorite is to humiliate their arrested victim, especially women, by stripping them naked. The abuse of women has become routine. In a recent case, a 31-year-old white mother of four in New Albany, Indiana, was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after a fight with her estranged husband. In police parlance, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest mean that the woman protested the false arrest and raised her voice. As most Americans have no idea about the police, they are shocked and disbelieving when they experience a police encounter. Until they have an encounter with the police, they are big supporters of the police. Unable to believe what was happening to her, she was stripped of her clothing by two male and two female cops, paraded around the jail naked in front of the police, and thrown naked into a cell. She became hysterical as a result of this treatment. Enjoying their torment of their victim, the cops pepper sprayed her. The county sheriff said that he does not believe jail policies or procedures were violated. In other words, the sheriff admitted that abuse, humiliation and excessive use of force are routine.
http://www.infowars.com/cops-strip-parade-pepper-spray-woman-and-lock-her-in-cell-for-7-hours/ Also: http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/tabitha-gentry/
As I write, I googled “videos of US police brutality” and 7,660,000 results appeared in 0.31 seconds. There are more cases of gratuitous police violence, almost always against the innocent, than a person can absorb in a lifetime. Police body slam elderly infirm people, taser cripples in wheel chairs, pepper spray, taser, and mace kids, young women, and mothers with babes in their arms. Just the other day police shot and killed a 13-year-old kid who was walking down the street with a toy rifle doing no harm to anyone. Only the goon cops regarded the 13-year-old as a threat. The goon cops simply couldn’t let the opportunity pass to experience the thrill of killing a person.
We see the same thing in the US military video released by Bradley Manning of the US helicopter gunship murdering journalists and citizens walking peacefully along a street and then murdering a father with two babies who stopped to help the wounded. Nothing happened to the murderers, but Bradley Manning was imprisoned for telling on them.
We are at the point that the police try to murder teenagers making out in a parked car. http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/no_author/cop-shoots-teenage-couple/
We have become a killer society, and the US government is the world’s leading killer.
Who’s the real danger
The cases of gratuitous police violence against the public are so numerous that it is impossible to report on them. All that can be done is to categorize them into types. The conclusion is that the police are a far greater danger to the public than are criminals.Moreover, the police are unaccountable. They can murder with impunity, but if you even accidentally or reflexively touch one of them, it is off to prison with you if you survive the beating. Cecily McMillan, about whom I recently wrote, was an Occupy protester. Her breasts were seized from behind by a cop. Reflexively, her elbow came up as she swung around and her elbow hit the cop. Recently a cowardly or corrupt jury, egged on by a corrupt judge and prosecutor, found her guilty of assaulting an officer and she was sentenced to prison. Nothing happened to the cop who sexually assaulted and falsely arrested her.
Prosecutors are interested in convictions, not justice. Prosecutors routinely indict the innocent on the basis of the false charges brought by police, and judges often are complicit in the false convictions. No honest prosecutor would have brought the case against Cecily McMillan. Her trial was a political trial, and her conviction was a foregone conclusion. The purpose was to send the message that regardless of constitutional rights, protests against the Establishment are not permitted. The judge guaranteed her conviction by ruling that no evidence of the injury to her breast could be presented in her defense and that the jurors could not be informed of the arresting officer’s record of excessive use of force and abuse of citizens. The jury was unwilling to stand up for an innocent person. Instead of serving justice, the jury served the corrupt purpose of the police state.
See http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Betrayal-of-Cecily-McM-by-Marc-Ash-Cecily-Mcmillan_Jury_Justice_Political-140603-414.html and http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/21/justice-dead-amerika/
Whatever the police do, seldom do they suffer any consequences. As a result they have become more bold and more violent. Any encounter with the American police is a dangerous one.
The “war on terror” has removed any remaining constraints on police. The federal government has militarized state and local police and equipped them as if they were a military force. The police are trained to regard the public as a danger and to take no risk with their lives when confronting citizens. The police are taught that politely asking questions in order to arrive at an assessment of a situation could expose them to danger and that they should avoid all risk to themselves by dominating the situation with force just as an army or marine unit would do when confronting an enemy.
I have witnessed training exercises at which 30 police officers line up and empty high capacity magazines at the same target. We are talking about 450 shots in a few seconds at one head-sized target. It was this type of training that resulted in 23 cops pouring 377 bullets into two men in Miami, one of whom was totally innocent of any charges.
Armed for daily battle
SWAT teams have become ubiquitous and they are armed with tanks, with MRAPs (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Armored Fighting Vehicles), and BearCat Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Trucks. These military vehicles are in routine use, and the SWAT team breaking down your door has replaced the policeman knocking to present a summons.http://rt.com/usa/164816-american-police-militarization-war/
It once was the case that joining the police force implied low-level risk. An officer could, and occasionally did, die in performing his duty. Today no level of risk is acceptable for police. Therefore, all risk has been shifted to the public anytime members of the public have encounters, mistaken or not, with the police. Consequently, police kill far more innocent members of the public than criminals kill police. The police have become like Wall Street and the federal government. The police serve no public interest.
When I was growing up in the forties and fifties, we understood that the police force attracted bullies because of the power of the badge, but unlike today the police did not have carte blanche. In the forties and fifties the American people had not been reduced to powerlessness or to the sheeple that they are today. Newspapers were still independently owned and served as a constraint on police power. Blacks did not always get this protection, but in large southern cities, such as Atlanta, where Ralph McGill was editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, blacks, too, had the protection of the press. I remember the first civil rights march in Atlanta. There were no police and no dogs set on the marchers. I know because I was there.
Bullies were one thing, but there was not the hostility toward the public that is ingrained in police training today. Standing up for one’s constitutional rights in a police encounter today is a perfect way to enrage a bully whose authority is questioned. The likely result is a beating and arrest. Subservience is the easiest way to survive a police encounter. You might be a brain surgeon or a former high government official and the cop might be someone who barely made it out of high school. But if you want to get out of it without damage to your body and charges on your record, act like a peasant confronted by a baron, earl or duke centuries ago. This is America today.
Anything else and you might be history.
So, are police review boards the answer? Apparently not. In 1993, 27 years after New York Mayor Lindsay’s failed attempt to impose some accountability on police, Mayor David Dinkins established the largely powerless Civilian Complaint Review Board. The police rose up in opposition and were egged on by Rudy Giuliani, who when he became mayor gave the police carte blanche. White New Yorkers applauded Giuliani. Finally, they were safe again — as long as they did not have a run-in with the police or the SWAT team didn’t go to the wrong address, perhaps a more likely occurrence than a criminal showing up at the door.
A number of cities today have review boards. Some have powers. Most don’t. Even those with powers have been made hesitant to use them. When terror is such a threat that the country remains on Orange Alert, one step below Red Alert, for years, only a terrorist-loving liberal-pinko-commie would want to restrain the police.
As long as the US remains in the hands of the Establishment, police review boards will be ineffective. Wikipedia reports that in 2006, eight years ago, the NY Civilian Complaint Review Board received 7,699 complaints, approximately 6% resulted in a “substantiated disposition.” In other words, 94% of the cases went nowhere.
The police have been set loose on us by “law and order” conservatives and by the “war on terror.” The police are doing us far more damage than are the criminals and the terrorists.
It remains to be seen whether Americans survive their police.
In the meantime the sheeple will continue to pay the salaries of those who pose the greatest threat to them.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
Donnerstag, 14. August 2014
Activist Post: The Road to Singularity: Potential Annihilation, Utopian Visions, Will Liberty Prevail? #news
Activist Post: The Road to Singularity: Potential Annihilation, Utopian Visions, Will Liberty Prevail? #News
The Road to Singularity: Potential Annihilation, Utopian Visions, Will Liberty Prevail?
Daniel Taylor
Activist Post
Dreams of the far future destiny of man were dragging up from its shallow and unquiet grave the old dream of man as god… – C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945
In 1945, George Orwell, famous for his stunningly accurate portrayal of a future police state in 1984, commented on prominent author C. S. Lewis’ book That Hideous Strength. Hideous Strength revolves around the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (NICE) and the organization’s plot to seize control of all life. Orwell’s commentary was published in the Manchester Evening News in 1945 with the headline “THE SCIENTISTS TAKE OVER.” Orwell wrote,
The roots of the Internet can be traced to Bush’s ideas in 1945. The forerunner to the computer itself can also be attributed to his early designs. From 1935 to 1946 the Rockefeller Foundation funded Vannevar Bush’s development of the mechanical differential analyzer at MIT for a total of $230,500. This device, along with the Hollerith machine, is considered to be one of the forerunners of the desktop computer that we all know and use today.
Scientific developments and new technologies are often spun as beneficial things for humanity, and in fact many of them are. We need to remember that while each development brings power to mankind, it also gives power to some men over other men. As Orwell said, “There is nothing improbable” about such desires for power.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell speech “…in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”
Scientists from all over the world are warning that robots and artificial intelligence could eliminate humanity. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, a private space exploration company, told CNBC recently that he is worried about a “Terminator-like scenario” as a result of advancing AI technology.
Top A.I. researcher Hugo de Garis provides another example. De Garis explains that the development of super-intelligent A.I. may lead to a devastating “Artilect” war that could kill billions of people.
This war could break out when two distinct groups of humanity emerge; One group embraces the god-like artificial intelligence and technological advancement with religious fervor, the other group fights to prevent it from ever being built. He adds that he is more than willing to take the risk, saying, “As a brain builder myself, am I prepared to risk the extinction of the human species for the sake of building an artilect? … yep.”
This mindset, common among scientific elites, was articulated by Arthur Kroker, Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria and Director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture. Kroker identified these individuals as “Suicidal nihilists” who “…can very happily ally themselves with a notion of nuclear holocaust or perfect exterminism… They’re creating again and again the exterminism of human memory, the exterminism of human sensibility, the exterminism of individuated human intelligence…”
Transhumanism
Partly due to popular culture, transhumanism has begun to catch on with the younger generations. As Amanda Stoel, co-founder of the Facebook group “Singularity Network” told the Huffington Post, “Three years ago, we had only around 400 members, but today we have over 10,000 members.”
Another article from the Huffington Post says that the transhumanist movement is “on the verge of going mainstream” due to increasing popular culture references to transhumanist ideas. Art has been used for millennia to initiate and give support to ideas and movements. Transhumanist artwork in the form of sculptures, paintings, and music is now steadily flowing into our society. Movies like Transcendence, and Avatar are two recent examples.
A haunting sculpture of a humanoid robotic figure crawling through water is featured at the luxury Grove Hotel in Watford, UK.
The hotel was the site of the secretive 2013 Bilderberg meeting. The Grove hotel hosted Google’s annual Zeitgeist conference just a few short days prior to Bilderberg’s gathering. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, who currently employs top transhumanist Ray Kurzweil as director of engineering, must have felt a kindred spirit at the Grove and its metallic humanoid sculptures.
Transhumanists embrace the idea of radical human evolution aided by technology. Some see an entirely new species emerging when revolutionary technologies begin to be applied to the human race. Technologies for the improvement of human performance are at the center of transhumanist thought. Most of these technologies begin with military applications, and only after a period of use by the military or black operations are they unveiled to the general public. In 2008 the JASON group, the Pentagon’s top scientific advisers, warned that the U.S. military could face enemies with technologically enhanced abilities. These capabilities include brain-machine interfaces and pharmaceutical drugs that enhance cognitive abilities.
This new arms race will eventually force our society into a transhuman future due to the never ending desire to dominate our enemies. The debate over whether or not we should genetically modify or chip our soldiers will inevitably spill over into the general public, who will be using these technologies themselves. According to CNN, human trials in the civilian world for memory enhancing brain chips are set to begin in less than a year. Exoskeletons, which provide super-human strength to those who wear them, were originally developed by DARPA, the Department of Defense’s research agency.
Other examples of technology with possible transhumanist applications include nanotechnology, synthetic biology, genetic modification, and cognitive science. Initial uses of these technologies will be to help the disabled walk, hear, and see. After this, enhancement of normal individuals is an inevitability.
Marc Andreessen is a Silicon Valley tycoon who has founded several multi-billion dollar tech companies including Mosaic (the first widely used web browser) and Netscape. He recently drew criticism from Salon magazine for a “tweet storm” on twitter that praised the god-like power of advancing technology. Salon ran the headline “The tech industry’s God complex is getting out of control.”
Andreessen tweeted “I am firmly convinced many people are fundamentally underestimating the power and potential of these new superpowers in the years ahead.” He continued, “Combine modern bio, 3D printing, & computing–>prosthetics & exoskeletons; superpower: paralyzed to walk, disabled to abled, blind to see.”
Some scientists are predicting that getting chip implants will become mandatory due to overwhelming societal pressure. Cybernetics scientist Dr Mark Gasson told the Sydney Morning Herald that, “It’s not possible to interact in society today in any meaningful way, without having a mobile phone. I think human implants will go along a similar route. It will be such a disadvantage not to have the implant that it will essentially not be optional.”
A New Dark Age or Renaissance?
Transhumanists, like political parties and religions, are broken into sects. There are distinct groups within the transhumanist movement that differ on how radical technologies should be employed, but both embrace the core ideals of transhumanism.
The industrial revolution and all of its technological advancements spawned dozens of communities that sought to live out Utopian ideas in response to new issues caused by the revolution. The industrial revolution will pale in comparison to the coming era of transhumanism and the Singularity.
This time the very makeup of human beings is about to change, and has begun to change already. Brain chips and genetically modified species are a far cry from steam powered trains and assembly lines.
Interests that represent the power structure – which historically seeks to perpetuate itself and dominate everything else – are actively investing in and researching these technologies as well; but with a different goal in mind. Money and power will have a significant influence in how the era of Singularity develops.
Gaping societal divides will inevitably ensue over the development of these technologies. Fred Charles Ikle, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy under President Reagan, outlines this divide in his 2006 book Annihilation from Within. Ikle writes, “The prospect is that in the decades ahead, biotechnology – together with other sciences – may fundamentally change the human species and thus pose an elemental threat to democracy, the world order, and indeed to all civilizations.”
The broader geopolitical, technological and economic shape of the future is being molded by current trends and power plays by the establishment. We are facing a situation where governments are going broke, globalist influences have broken down national borders, and non-governmental organizations, tax exempt foundations and mega corporations are filling the gap. In the coming era, mega coporations will provide advanced technology to their constituents and thus gain loyalty in their own unique sectors of society. As we stray away from broken governments to provide security and prosperity, these entities will take the reigns. According to futurists Parag and Ayesha Khanna,
In the paper, Dr. Barton Kunstler documents the impact of ESI’s (Enhanced Singular Individuals). These people are “augmented” with performance enhancing technologies like brain chips. Kunstler states,
The ideasphere of the future is being shaped now. Elites around the world are keenly aware of the importance of the historical time we are living in, and the media promotion of transhumanism is beginning to prepare us. Awareness of these issues is a critical step. Only then do you have choice.
Should our progress be measured by the power of our technology, or something else? A highly technological society is not necessarily free. A more prudent test of progress is the amount of liberty that we enjoy. No matter how much science and technology attempt to tame nature, alter our bodies and forever change the human race in an attempt to cheat death, risk and uncertainty will always be present. In striving for these things we may end up destroying the human spirit, and a power hungry elite is more than willing to help us along.
Daniel Taylor is an independent researcher, activist, and webmaster of oldthinkernews.com. You can find out more about him and his site HERE
The Road to Singularity: Potential Annihilation, Utopian Visions, Will Liberty Prevail?
Daniel TaylorActivist Post
Dreams of the far future destiny of man were dragging up from its shallow and unquiet grave the old dream of man as god… – C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945
In 1945, George Orwell, famous for his stunningly accurate portrayal of a future police state in 1984, commented on prominent author C. S. Lewis’ book That Hideous Strength. Hideous Strength revolves around the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (NICE) and the organization’s plot to seize control of all life. Orwell’s commentary was published in the Manchester Evening News in 1945 with the headline “THE SCIENTISTS TAKE OVER.” Orwell wrote,
All superfluous life is to be wiped out, all natural forces tamed, the common people are to be used as slaves and vivisection subjects by the ruling caste of scientists, who even see their way to conferring immortal life upon themselves. Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself.
There is nothing outrageously improbable in such a conspiracy. Indeed, at a moment when a single atomic bomb – of a type already pronounced “obsolete” – has just blown probably three hundred thousand people to fragments, it sounds all too topical. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable.Do we live in an age when these dreams of power could become a reality? Lewis and Orwell have been proven very accurate in their portrayals of the future 70 years ago. Much of the momentum for the scientific developments that would create these formerly fantastical technologies began in the lifetimes of both Lewis and Orwell. They witnessed the rise of the science of molecular biology, initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation and other tax-exempt foundations who were interested in finding out how the human body operates, with an eye toward better controlling society. The eugenics and social control paradigms that sprung from this foundation sparked scientific revolution in the early 20th century are still in play today among the intelligentsia of Western society.
Vannevar Bush became the first Science Advisor to the United States government during World War II under President Franklin Roosevelt. Bush played a vital role in the creation of what we know today as the Military Industrial Complex. Specifically, the method of scientific research of this gargantuan organization – beginning with the Office of Scientific Research and Development – was devised by Vannevar.
The roots of the Internet can be traced to Bush’s ideas in 1945. The forerunner to the computer itself can also be attributed to his early designs. From 1935 to 1946 the Rockefeller Foundation funded Vannevar Bush’s development of the mechanical differential analyzer at MIT for a total of $230,500. This device, along with the Hollerith machine, is considered to be one of the forerunners of the desktop computer that we all know and use today.
Scientific developments and new technologies are often spun as beneficial things for humanity, and in fact many of them are. We need to remember that while each development brings power to mankind, it also gives power to some men over other men. As Orwell said, “There is nothing improbable” about such desires for power.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell speech “…in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”
In 1968 LIFE magazine profiled a man named Herman Kahn. Labeled an “action intellectual”, Kahn is a founding father of future studies. LIFE reports, “Herman Kahn has been a major figure in one of the most fascinating shifts of power in U.S. History: from identifiable public leaders to the ‘action intellectuals.’” The article continues, “As counselors to the decision-makers, men such as Kahn often have access to future technology (what is known, but not yet disclosed) and official intelligence (what is known, but not yet revealed, about the capacities and plans of other nations)… Thus, decisions – based on private knowledge, analyzed by private consultants and debated in private – can become public policy. This is a process of invisible power.”
Scientists from all over the world are warning that robots and artificial intelligence could eliminate humanity. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, a private space exploration company, told CNBC recently that he is worried about a “Terminator-like scenario” as a result of advancing AI technology.
Top A.I. researcher Hugo de Garis provides another example. De Garis explains that the development of super-intelligent A.I. may lead to a devastating “Artilect” war that could kill billions of people.
This war could break out when two distinct groups of humanity emerge; One group embraces the god-like artificial intelligence and technological advancement with religious fervor, the other group fights to prevent it from ever being built. He adds that he is more than willing to take the risk, saying, “As a brain builder myself, am I prepared to risk the extinction of the human species for the sake of building an artilect? … yep.”
This mindset, common among scientific elites, was articulated by Arthur Kroker, Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria and Director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture. Kroker identified these individuals as “Suicidal nihilists” who “…can very happily ally themselves with a notion of nuclear holocaust or perfect exterminism… They’re creating again and again the exterminism of human memory, the exterminism of human sensibility, the exterminism of individuated human intelligence…”
Transhumanism
Partly due to popular culture, transhumanism has begun to catch on with the younger generations. As Amanda Stoel, co-founder of the Facebook group “Singularity Network” told the Huffington Post, “Three years ago, we had only around 400 members, but today we have over 10,000 members.”
Another article from the Huffington Post says that the transhumanist movement is “on the verge of going mainstream” due to increasing popular culture references to transhumanist ideas. Art has been used for millennia to initiate and give support to ideas and movements. Transhumanist artwork in the form of sculptures, paintings, and music is now steadily flowing into our society. Movies like Transcendence, and Avatar are two recent examples.
A haunting sculpture of a humanoid robotic figure crawling through water is featured at the luxury Grove Hotel in Watford, UK.
The hotel was the site of the secretive 2013 Bilderberg meeting. The Grove hotel hosted Google’s annual Zeitgeist conference just a few short days prior to Bilderberg’s gathering. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, who currently employs top transhumanist Ray Kurzweil as director of engineering, must have felt a kindred spirit at the Grove and its metallic humanoid sculptures.
Transhumanists embrace the idea of radical human evolution aided by technology. Some see an entirely new species emerging when revolutionary technologies begin to be applied to the human race. Technologies for the improvement of human performance are at the center of transhumanist thought. Most of these technologies begin with military applications, and only after a period of use by the military or black operations are they unveiled to the general public. In 2008 the JASON group, the Pentagon’s top scientific advisers, warned that the U.S. military could face enemies with technologically enhanced abilities. These capabilities include brain-machine interfaces and pharmaceutical drugs that enhance cognitive abilities.
This new arms race will eventually force our society into a transhuman future due to the never ending desire to dominate our enemies. The debate over whether or not we should genetically modify or chip our soldiers will inevitably spill over into the general public, who will be using these technologies themselves. According to CNN, human trials in the civilian world for memory enhancing brain chips are set to begin in less than a year. Exoskeletons, which provide super-human strength to those who wear them, were originally developed by DARPA, the Department of Defense’s research agency.
Other examples of technology with possible transhumanist applications include nanotechnology, synthetic biology, genetic modification, and cognitive science. Initial uses of these technologies will be to help the disabled walk, hear, and see. After this, enhancement of normal individuals is an inevitability.
Marc Andreessen is a Silicon Valley tycoon who has founded several multi-billion dollar tech companies including Mosaic (the first widely used web browser) and Netscape. He recently drew criticism from Salon magazine for a “tweet storm” on twitter that praised the god-like power of advancing technology. Salon ran the headline “The tech industry’s God complex is getting out of control.”
Andreessen tweeted “I am firmly convinced many people are fundamentally underestimating the power and potential of these new superpowers in the years ahead.” He continued, “Combine modern bio, 3D printing, & computing–>prosthetics & exoskeletons; superpower: paralyzed to walk, disabled to abled, blind to see.”
Some scientists are predicting that getting chip implants will become mandatory due to overwhelming societal pressure. Cybernetics scientist Dr Mark Gasson told the Sydney Morning Herald that, “It’s not possible to interact in society today in any meaningful way, without having a mobile phone. I think human implants will go along a similar route. It will be such a disadvantage not to have the implant that it will essentially not be optional.”
A New Dark Age or Renaissance?
Transhumanists, like political parties and religions, are broken into sects. There are distinct groups within the transhumanist movement that differ on how radical technologies should be employed, but both embrace the core ideals of transhumanism.
There are so called “libertarian” transhumanists who believe that revolutionary technologies should be used for the good of mankind. Billionaire businessmen Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the ranks of this group. They are engaging in R&D on synthetic biology, space exploration, artificial islands (with the goal of escaping government interference), and actively support the Singularity Institute.
The industrial revolution and all of its technological advancements spawned dozens of communities that sought to live out Utopian ideas in response to new issues caused by the revolution. The industrial revolution will pale in comparison to the coming era of transhumanism and the Singularity.
This time the very makeup of human beings is about to change, and has begun to change already. Brain chips and genetically modified species are a far cry from steam powered trains and assembly lines.
Interests that represent the power structure – which historically seeks to perpetuate itself and dominate everything else – are actively investing in and researching these technologies as well; but with a different goal in mind. Money and power will have a significant influence in how the era of Singularity develops.
Gaping societal divides will inevitably ensue over the development of these technologies. Fred Charles Ikle, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy under President Reagan, outlines this divide in his 2006 book Annihilation from Within. Ikle writes, “The prospect is that in the decades ahead, biotechnology – together with other sciences – may fundamentally change the human species and thus pose an elemental threat to democracy, the world order, and indeed to all civilizations.”
The broader geopolitical, technological and economic shape of the future is being molded by current trends and power plays by the establishment. We are facing a situation where governments are going broke, globalist influences have broken down national borders, and non-governmental organizations, tax exempt foundations and mega corporations are filling the gap. In the coming era, mega coporations will provide advanced technology to their constituents and thus gain loyalty in their own unique sectors of society. As we stray away from broken governments to provide security and prosperity, these entities will take the reigns. According to futurists Parag and Ayesha Khanna,
Employees of Facebook or Google can spend their days on campuses that are effectively full-service communes; the same is happening in companies in Russia, India, and China. One day a corporate passport might afford them greater freedom of mobility than their national citizenship.
Analysts writing in the 2008 U.S. Army War College paper “Leadership in the Era of the Human Singularity” portray a future in which multiple scenarios are possible. One sees a new renaissance and unprecedented human development aided by technology, the other envisions a new dark age of world-wide high tech totalitarian control.
In the paper, Dr. Barton Kunstler documents the impact of ESI’s (Enhanced Singular Individuals). These people are “augmented” with performance enhancing technologies like brain chips. Kunstler states,
“This is the crux of power and also a focus of much futurist thought. Technocracy has long been depicted as uniform and oppressive, with social control the primary aim. In broadest terms, ESIs will influence social organization to reflect and favor the expression of their outsized talents. This shift could imply a commitment to creativity and innovation, with society organized to favor artists, visionaries, scientists, and inventors… Or it could result in 1984-like scenarios due to the power endowed by invasive, body -and psyche- penetrating technologies.”
We are in a war of ideas right now. If there were ever a time for activism and involvement in the direction of society, it is now. How will we deal with technologies that will intrude into our bodies and minds? Will a tyrannical global elite – as envisioned by papers published by the United Kingdom’s Ministry Defense, Army War College and others – dominate the globe in a technocratic scientific dictatorship? Ultimately it is up to individuals and the choices we make.
The ideasphere of the future is being shaped now. Elites around the world are keenly aware of the importance of the historical time we are living in, and the media promotion of transhumanism is beginning to prepare us. Awareness of these issues is a critical step. Only then do you have choice.
Should our progress be measured by the power of our technology, or something else? A highly technological society is not necessarily free. A more prudent test of progress is the amount of liberty that we enjoy. No matter how much science and technology attempt to tame nature, alter our bodies and forever change the human race in an attempt to cheat death, risk and uncertainty will always be present. In striving for these things we may end up destroying the human spirit, and a power hungry elite is more than willing to help us along.
Daniel Taylor is an independent researcher, activist, and webmaster of oldthinkernews.com. You can find out more about him and his site HERE
Activist Post: The Era Of Cyborg Nanotechnology Has Begun #news
Activist Post: The Era Of Cyborg Nanotechnology Has Begun #News
The Era Of Cyborg Nanotechnology Has Begun
The Era Of Cyborg Nanotechnology Has Begun
Update on the merger of human and machine
Nicholas West
Activist Post
Technology seems to be on a runaway course either to free humanity or to enslave us. On one end we see massive continued investment in replacing humans with robots, both economically and socially.
Parallel to this trend, we are seeing advancements in neuroscience being made from global projects like the BRAIN initiative in the U.S. and its counterpart in Europe, the Human Brain Project. These projects seek to decode the human brain and tailor it for "treatments," as well as to enable the realization of full brain-computer-interface technology. The pace of these developments has increased toward the dizzying, such as a "living" transistor that uses DNA merged with graphene, the advent of quantum computing and nanocomputing, the creation of avatars, DNA nanobots, and a range of neuro applications that are beginning to transform our fundamental relationship with the "real" world.
One respected scientific journal announced earlier this year that the era of cyborgs indeed has begun, as an array of medical applications are merging us with machines and computer systems. This is also happening in tandem with augmented reality applications that have entered the consumer space.
The latest press release states emphatically that we are "On the Frontiers of Cyborg Science." Once again, only the potential benefits are noted, but the funding for the research cited comes from the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Air Force. As you read the full chronicle of the developments to date, how do you believe this science will be used? With funding sources such as these, can you imagine some negative consequences? Your thoughts are welcome in the comment section below.
Press release: "On the frontiers of cyborg science"
No longer just fantastical fodder for sci-fi buffs, cyborg technology is bringing us tangible progress toward real-life electronic skin, prosthetics and ultraflexible circuits. Now taking this human-machine concept to an unprecedented level, pioneering scientists are working on the seamless marriage between electronics and brain signaling with the potential to transform our understanding of how the brain works — and how to treat its most devastating diseases.
Their presentation is taking place at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 12,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics and is being held here through Thursday.
Nicholas WestActivist Post
Technology seems to be on a runaway course either to free humanity or to enslave us. On one end we see massive continued investment in replacing humans with robots, both economically and socially.
Parallel to this trend, we are seeing advancements in neuroscience being made from global projects like the BRAIN initiative in the U.S. and its counterpart in Europe, the Human Brain Project. These projects seek to decode the human brain and tailor it for "treatments," as well as to enable the realization of full brain-computer-interface technology. The pace of these developments has increased toward the dizzying, such as a "living" transistor that uses DNA merged with graphene, the advent of quantum computing and nanocomputing, the creation of avatars, DNA nanobots, and a range of neuro applications that are beginning to transform our fundamental relationship with the "real" world.
One respected scientific journal announced earlier this year that the era of cyborgs indeed has begun, as an array of medical applications are merging us with machines and computer systems. This is also happening in tandem with augmented reality applications that have entered the consumer space.
The latest press release states emphatically that we are "On the Frontiers of Cyborg Science." Once again, only the potential benefits are noted, but the funding for the research cited comes from the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Air Force. As you read the full chronicle of the developments to date, how do you believe this science will be used? With funding sources such as these, can you imagine some negative consequences? Your thoughts are welcome in the comment section below.
Press release: "On the frontiers of cyborg science"
No longer just fantastical fodder for sci-fi buffs, cyborg technology is bringing us tangible progress toward real-life electronic skin, prosthetics and ultraflexible circuits. Now taking this human-machine concept to an unprecedented level, pioneering scientists are working on the seamless marriage between electronics and brain signaling with the potential to transform our understanding of how the brain works — and how to treat its most devastating diseases.
Their presentation is taking place at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 12,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics and is being held here through Thursday.
"By focusing on the nanoelectronic connections between cells, we can do things no one has done before," says Charles M. Lieber, Ph.D. "We're really going into a new size regime for not only the device that records or stimulates cellular activity, but also for the whole circuit. We can make it really look and behave like smart, soft biological material, and integrate it with cells and cellular networks at the whole-tissue level. This could get around a lot of serious health problems in neurodegenerative diseases in the future."
These disorders, such as Parkinson's, that involve malfunctioning nerve cells can lead to difficulty with the most mundane and essential movements that most of us take for granted: walking, talking, eating and swallowing.
Scientists are working furiously to get to the bottom of neurological disorders. But they involve the body's most complex organ — the brain — which is largely inaccessible to detailed, real-time scrutiny. This inability to see what's happening in the body's command center hinders the development of effective treatments for diseases that stem from it.
By using nanoelectronics, it could become possible for scientists to peer for the first time inside cells, see what's going wrong in real time and ideally set them on a functional path again.
These disorders, such as Parkinson's, that involve malfunctioning nerve cells can lead to difficulty with the most mundane and essential movements that most of us take for granted: walking, talking, eating and swallowing.
Scientists are working furiously to get to the bottom of neurological disorders. But they involve the body's most complex organ — the brain — which is largely inaccessible to detailed, real-time scrutiny. This inability to see what's happening in the body's command center hinders the development of effective treatments for diseases that stem from it.
By using nanoelectronics, it could become possible for scientists to peer for the first time inside cells, see what's going wrong in real time and ideally set them on a functional path again.
For the past several years, Lieber has been working to dramatically shrink cyborg science to a level that's thousands of times smaller and more flexible than other bioelectronic research efforts. His team has made ultrathin nanowires that can monitor and influence what goes on inside cells. Using these wires, they have built ultraflexible, 3-D mesh scaffolding with hundreds of addressable electronic units, and they have grown living tissue on it. They have also developed the tiniest electronic probe ever that can record even the fastest signaling between cells.
Rapid-fire cell signaling controls all of the body's movements, including breathing and swallowing, which are affected in some neurodegenerative diseases. And it's at this level where the promise of Lieber's most recent work enters the picture.
In one of the lab's latest directions, Lieber's team is figuring out how to inject their tiny, ultraflexible electronics into the brain and allow them to become fully integrated with the existing biological web of neurons. They're currently in the early stages of the project and are working with rat models.
"It's hard to say where this work will take us," he says. "But in the end, I believe our unique approach will take us on a path to do something really revolutionary."
Lieber acknowledges funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Air Force.
_________________________________________________________________________
FDA Approves World's First Bionic Eye Transplant
Full cyborg transformation has been given a green light by the FDA, and now researchers have successfully transplanted the world's first bionic eye.
This announcement is certainly among the benign applications of this technology, but it is nonetheless an important reminder that we should consider if any limits need to be put on future applications like some of those discussed below. As professor and developer of this bionic system, Thiran Jayasundera, states:
Google to Introduce Smart Contact Lenses
The Google Glass concept is poised to transform into a much less invasive apparatus: Smart contact lenses. As Extreme Tech reports, it is beginning with a medical application, but has obvious crossover potential:
The mention of cyborgs is not mere hyperbole. The technology already exists to apply a range of applications directly into contact lenses. A transparent graphene display built with the ability to be flexible ushers in the contact lens computer. It's being developed by researchers in Korea:
Amazingly, the core technology for smart contact lenses has been around since 2008. As Gizmag reported at the time, it was a stunning development that very well could have marked "the beginning of the Computer Human Interface of the future."
Rapid-fire cell signaling controls all of the body's movements, including breathing and swallowing, which are affected in some neurodegenerative diseases. And it's at this level where the promise of Lieber's most recent work enters the picture.
In one of the lab's latest directions, Lieber's team is figuring out how to inject their tiny, ultraflexible electronics into the brain and allow them to become fully integrated with the existing biological web of neurons. They're currently in the early stages of the project and are working with rat models.
"It's hard to say where this work will take us," he says. "But in the end, I believe our unique approach will take us on a path to do something really revolutionary."
Lieber acknowledges funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Air Force.
_________________________________________________________________________
FDA Approves World's First Bionic Eye Transplant
Full cyborg transformation has been given a green light by the FDA, and now researchers have successfully transplanted the world's first bionic eye.
Surgeons at the University of Michigan Health System have made the first officially FDA-approved "bionic eye" transplants, allowing patients with a degenerative eye disease to make out light and shapes. The Michigan Daily reports that on January 16th and 22nd, two surgeons successfully implanted the Argus II artificial retina, which is composed of a sheet of electrodes fixed to the eye. The implant is paired with a pair of camera-equipped glasses and a processor that captures video from the glasses. That video is then sent as a series of pulses to the electrodes, stimulating the patient's remaining nerve fibers. (Source)While the device does not offer any type of superhuman enhancement - it in fact only offers rudimentary sight - researchers are heralding this as a major step in a new direction.
This announcement is certainly among the benign applications of this technology, but it is nonetheless an important reminder that we should consider if any limits need to be put on future applications like some of those discussed below. As professor and developer of this bionic system, Thiran Jayasundera, states:
This is already the Argus II . . . In time there will be more development of these types of devices. (Source)__________________________________________________________________________
Google to Introduce Smart Contact Lenses
The Google Glass concept is poised to transform into a much less invasive apparatus: Smart contact lenses. As Extreme Tech reports, it is beginning with a medical application, but has obvious crossover potential:
The first smart contact lens, aimed at diabetics, takes a glucose level reading every second from the tears that wash over your eye when you blink, and transmits that data wirelessly to a nearby device. Google doesn’t say what device, but presumably a smartphone or Google Glass. Yes, if Google X has its way, we will soon all look like cyborgs, our bodies becoming interconnected networks of implants and augmentations. (source) [emphasis added]
The mention of cyborgs is not mere hyperbole. The technology already exists to apply a range of applications directly into contact lenses. A transparent graphene display built with the ability to be flexible ushers in the contact lens computer. It's being developed by researchers in Korea:
The researchers were able to build miniature inorganic LEDs by connecting the graphene sheets together with silver nanowires into a hybrid structure. The flexible silver nanowires enabled the hybrid strucuture to maintain its high conductivity even when bent. The most important factor for using the hybrid graphene in a contact lens-based computer is its high transparency. (Source)The silver nanowire sensors promise a multitude of wearable applications:
A clear, bandage-like sensor could eventually make everything from fabrics to our fingers smart. Dr. Yong Zhu and a team of North Carolina State University researchers created an ultra-thin, flexible sensor that could be used in clothing, on the body, any in other ordinary objects to track things like strain, pressure, human touch, and bioelectronic signals. (Source)
Amazingly, the core technology for smart contact lenses has been around since 2008. As Gizmag reported at the time, it was a stunning development that very well could have marked "the beginning of the Computer Human Interface of the future."
It’s not often in this era of rampant technological innovation that a fundamentally new concept surfaces – with almost no limitations to what can be achieved with the myriad new technologies coming to market over the last few years, fundamentally new ideas of this magnitude are becoming increasingly rare, much less technologies with groundbreaking societal implications. Such a technology emerged this week when it was announced that engineers at the University of Washington have used microscopic scale manufacturing techniques to combine a flexible contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.As they also noted, the amount of investment into this area indicates how close to full reality the tech sector believes this to be:
Microvision, 3M, Texas Instruments, Explay, Neochroma, Digislide, Light Blue Optics and from research labs such as the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems. Though the microprojection area promises the ability to project a large screen on any flat surface, we have yet to see commercially available products and the technology won’t suit everyone, partially because they’re still not quite small enough, and partially because of privacy issues – projecting delicate company information onto an airport terminal wall, for example, might not be a good idea. (Source)Enter Google, which is already dealing with the privacy and legal issues of Google Glass. As we have seen with their investments in robotics and Smart Home technology, they are adept at making science fiction a palatable next-gen essential item by validating formerly radical concepts.
By combining the personal safety of health monitoring with the coolness of bionic zoom vision, can it really be resisted?
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Era of Cyborgs Has Begun
Until now, much of the dystopian aspect of these developments has been relegated to the alternative media; while the corporate, military, and governmental interests behind much of this tech continue to promote only the promise of a Utopia that will be free of disease, impairment, and death. But in order for this to happen, we must fully merge with computational and machine systems.
Now a leading mainstream scientific journal has announced that this is already happening, which indicates that the era of cyborgs has indeed begun.
The German science journal Applied Chemistry might not sit on the coffee table of the average citizen, but it is one of the most highly regarded in the world among those in the field, and is now in its 125th year of existence.
In their latest review, "The Chemistry of Cyborgs - Interfacing Technical Devices with Organisms" researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) first point to some of the electronic health implants that we already take for granted as being a merger of man and machine, such as pacemakers and hearing or retina implants.
However, it is the rise of "smart" materials that can instantly change based on body conditions and integrate into tissues that marks a future of computational analysis and restructuring of the human body.
By combining the personal safety of health monitoring with the coolness of bionic zoom vision, can it really be resisted?
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Era of Cyborgs Has Begun
Until now, much of the dystopian aspect of these developments has been relegated to the alternative media; while the corporate, military, and governmental interests behind much of this tech continue to promote only the promise of a Utopia that will be free of disease, impairment, and death. But in order for this to happen, we must fully merge with computational and machine systems.
Now a leading mainstream scientific journal has announced that this is already happening, which indicates that the era of cyborgs has indeed begun.
The German science journal Applied Chemistry might not sit on the coffee table of the average citizen, but it is one of the most highly regarded in the world among those in the field, and is now in its 125th year of existence.
In their latest review, "The Chemistry of Cyborgs - Interfacing Technical Devices with Organisms" researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) first point to some of the electronic health implants that we already take for granted as being a merger of man and machine, such as pacemakers and hearing or retina implants.
However, it is the rise of "smart" materials that can instantly change based on body conditions and integrate into tissues that marks a future of computational analysis and restructuring of the human body.
For successful tissue integration and the prevention of inflammation reactions, special surface coatings were developed also by the KIT under e.g. the multidisciplinary Helmholtz program "BioInterfaces".Most people embrace new developments that can assist with longevity and quality of life, and even the reversal of genetic conditions. But it is the human brain that poses the greatest ethical challenge; in this case, the brain-machine-interface (BMI).
BMI are often considered data suppliers. However, they can also be used to feed signals into the brain, which is a highly controversial issue from the ethical point of view. “Implanted BMI that feed signals into nerves, muscles or directly into the brain are already used on a routine basis, e.g. in cardiac pacemakers or implants for deep brain stimulation,” Professor Christof M. Niemeyer, KIT, explains. “But these signals are neither planned to be used nor suited to control the entire organism – brains of most living organisms are far too complex.” (emphasis added)As the researchers also note, neuroprostheses are the foundation of a true cyborg, where robotic systems combine with a brain-machine-interface to control the external with thought alone. You can see some examples of this mind-controlled reality here.
While, again, many would embrace the notion of effectively replacing lost limbs, or allowing the paralyzed to walk again, the deaf to hear, and the blind to see; this technology is becoming increasingly elective, as well as forming a merger with the gadgets of our modern-day existence. And it's all being done with very little two-way dialogue - science conducts the experiments, gets results, after which it is often dispersed for military use, then trickled down into consumer applications.
Moreover, as highlighted in the quote above, the two-way information transfer is troubling beyond the stated helpful applications. This is exactly what led a DARPA project researcher to blow the whistle on an Arizona State University project involving Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and the efforts to reproduce it through narrative. This can be done from a distance and is anything but elective.
Ethical concerns are unfortunately the last to arrive. It is for this reason that with very little fanfare we are becoming the cyborgs of science fiction. All that's left is to decide how far we wish to continue down this path; the fork in the road is already upon us.
Recently from Nicholas West:
Updated 8/10/2014
While, again, many would embrace the notion of effectively replacing lost limbs, or allowing the paralyzed to walk again, the deaf to hear, and the blind to see; this technology is becoming increasingly elective, as well as forming a merger with the gadgets of our modern-day existence. And it's all being done with very little two-way dialogue - science conducts the experiments, gets results, after which it is often dispersed for military use, then trickled down into consumer applications.
Moreover, as highlighted in the quote above, the two-way information transfer is troubling beyond the stated helpful applications. This is exactly what led a DARPA project researcher to blow the whistle on an Arizona State University project involving Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and the efforts to reproduce it through narrative. This can be done from a distance and is anything but elective.
Ethical concerns are unfortunately the last to arrive. It is for this reason that with very little fanfare we are becoming the cyborgs of science fiction. All that's left is to decide how far we wish to continue down this path; the fork in the road is already upon us.
Recently from Nicholas West:
Updated 8/10/2014
Activist Post: The Real Reason The US Is Bombing Iraq #news
Activist Post: The Real Reason The US Is Bombing Iraq #News
The Real Reason The US Is Bombing Iraq
Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
Only a day after Obama’s announcement that he had authorized “targeted strikes” inside Iraq in order to combat the Islamic State (IS) advance, the United States has indeed followed through with their threat.
At least two waves of airstrikes against a variety of targets have already taken place inside Iraq. One of the airstrikes apparently struck an IS mortar position and an IS convoy near Erbil. IS fighters had advanced to within a half hour’s distance from Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. According to a Pentagon spokesman, two FA-18s that took off from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf were involved in the airstrike.
Obama stated that the strikes were necessary to prevent genocide, to protect Christians and other religious minorities whose lives are in danger, and to halt the IS advance. The airstrikes are the first that have been authorized in Iraq by the United States since 2011.
What is notable, however, are the circumstances surrounding the initiation of the bombing and what may have prompted American military action now, after allowing ISIS (entirely funded, directed, created, and armed by the West – notably the United States) to seize vast swaths of territory across Iraq.
Why bomb Iraq now you might ask? And why bomb the area surrounding Erbil?
The answers to this question lie in the simple fact that the area surrounding Erbil – the Kurdish region of Iraq – is a “hub for US oil companies.”
The Real Reason The US Is Bombing Iraq
 |
| image source |
Activist Post
Only a day after Obama’s announcement that he had authorized “targeted strikes” inside Iraq in order to combat the Islamic State (IS) advance, the United States has indeed followed through with their threat.
At least two waves of airstrikes against a variety of targets have already taken place inside Iraq. One of the airstrikes apparently struck an IS mortar position and an IS convoy near Erbil. IS fighters had advanced to within a half hour’s distance from Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. According to a Pentagon spokesman, two FA-18s that took off from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf were involved in the airstrike.
Obama stated that the strikes were necessary to prevent genocide, to protect Christians and other religious minorities whose lives are in danger, and to halt the IS advance. The airstrikes are the first that have been authorized in Iraq by the United States since 2011.
What is notable, however, are the circumstances surrounding the initiation of the bombing and what may have prompted American military action now, after allowing ISIS (entirely funded, directed, created, and armed by the West – notably the United States) to seize vast swaths of territory across Iraq.
Why bomb Iraq now you might ask? And why bomb the area surrounding Erbil?
The answers to this question lie in the simple fact that the area surrounding Erbil – the Kurdish region of Iraq – is a “hub for US oil companies.”
In fact, Erbil, a city of 1.5 million people is largely viewed as the administrative center for the Kurdish regional oil industry and a quarter of Iraq’s oil production nationally. The oil reserves are so large in this region that Kurds often claim that, if they were to break off from Iraq and establish their own country, the new nation would stand as the ninth largest oil producer in the world.
As John B. Judis writes for the New Republic,
The threat to oil production facilities posed by the IS was reported in a number of other media outlets in addition to the New Republic and the Wall Street Journal.
It was not only American companies, however, that were concerned about their ability to continue production. British oil companies were beginning to evacuate personnel as well.
As Nigel Wilson of the International Business Times wrote,
The fact is that al-Qaeda, IS, and the other related terrorist organizations function as the CIA’s Arab legion. They are used to weaken and overthrow governments as well as to act as a constant bogeyman for populations back home so that civil liberties and Constitutional rights will be sacrificed willingly for the perception of security.
When these proxy armies begin to endanger oil production or any other project of the world oligarchy, however, they are eliminated and the threat that they pose is neutralized.
If the American people will wise up to this fact, one of the major tools used by the world oligarchy to terrorize the domestic population and the rest of the world will be yanked from their hands.
Recently from Brandon Turbeville:
As John B. Judis writes for the New Republic,
If the Islamic State were to take over Erbil, they would endanger Iraq’s oil production and, by extension, global access to oil. Prices would surge at a time when Europe, which buys oil from Iraq, has still not escaped the global recession. Oil prices have already risen in response to the Islamic State’s threat to Erbil, and on Thursday, American oil companies Chevron and Exxon Mobile began evacuating their personnel from Kurdistan. But oil traders are predicting that American intervention could halt the rise. “In essence we find U.S. air strikes more bearish than bullish for oil as the act finally draws a line for IS and reinforces both the stability in south Iraq and in Kurdistan,” Oliver Jakob, a Swiss oil analyst, told Reuters.
The threat to oil production facilities posed by the IS was reported in a number of other media outlets in addition to the New Republic and the Wall Street Journal.
It was not only American companies, however, that were concerned about their ability to continue production. British oil companies were beginning to evacuate personnel as well.
As Nigel Wilson of the International Business Times wrote,
London-listed oil companies have pulled workers from Iraqi Kurdistan as security forces battle with militants from the Islamic State in the semi-autonomous region.
Genel Energy said it was withdrawing staff from fields that had not started production, but insisted its fields at Taq Taq and Tawke were secure.
"We remain confident in the Kurdistan regional government's ability to maintain the territorial integrity of both the KRI and oil infrastructure," it said in a statement.
"In line with moves by other operators, we are taking the prudent and precautionary step of withdrawing non-essential personnel from our non-producing assets in the region," it added.
Meanwhile, Afren said it had suspended operations at the Barda Rash field.
"Working with our local security advisers, Afren is implementing a phased withdrawal of non-essential field personnel from the Barda Rash field," it said in a statement. "It is expected that we will return to field operations as soon as it is prudent to do so."With this information in mind, it might perhaps become more clear to those who cannot understand why the United States would fund IS terrorists into power and initiate a bombing campaign against them shortly thereafter.
The fact is that al-Qaeda, IS, and the other related terrorist organizations function as the CIA’s Arab legion. They are used to weaken and overthrow governments as well as to act as a constant bogeyman for populations back home so that civil liberties and Constitutional rights will be sacrificed willingly for the perception of security.
When these proxy armies begin to endanger oil production or any other project of the world oligarchy, however, they are eliminated and the threat that they pose is neutralized.
If the American people will wise up to this fact, one of the major tools used by the world oligarchy to terrorize the domestic population and the rest of the world will be yanked from their hands.
Recently from Brandon Turbeville:
- Obama Authorizes Targeted Airstrikes In Iraq
- Why Aren't ISIS and Al-Qaeda Attacking Israel?
- DHS Funded Report: Sovereign Citizens Greatest Threat To U.S.
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)