May 21, 2013

Take Action

Stop Corporate Control Over Our Seeds

Urgent Action Alert - Deadline Thursday May 23, 2013

Click here to send your letter instantly

The National Farmers Union asks you to submit your letter to stop the significant regulatory changes to Seed Variety Registration in Canada. These changes will:

• Permit companies to take seed varieties off the market whenever they like, which will increasingly force farmers to use only varieties subject to royalties under the Plant Breeders Rights Act or varieties with gene patents.
• Empower companies to introduce new varieties of soybeans and forage crops – including alfalfa – that have not been field-tested for merit and which therefore may not provide any benefit to farmers.
• Allow seed companies to transfer to farmers’ shoulders all risks of poor seed/crop performance when planting varieties that have not been field-tested by independent third parties.
• Transfer decision-making about which new varieties are introduced, and when, from a transparent, publicly accountable process based on expert advice offered by Recommending Committees to a behind-closed-door process controlled by private seed companies.
• Letting companies de-register varieties will permit companies to unilaterally stop farmers from accessing and using perfectly good varieties developed through long-term collaboration among farmers, public plant breeders and international seed collections.

For more information view the action alert from the National Farmers Union.

Take Action - Canadian Biotechnology Action Network - CBAN.

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom

Early Sunday morning, French police stood helpless as sixty people, locked inside an open-air field of genetically modified grapevines, uprooted all the plants.  In Spain last month, dozens of people destroyed two GMO fields. On the millennial cusp, Indian farmers burned Bt cotton in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Ignored by multinational corporations and corrupt public policy makers, citizens act to protect the food supply and the planet.

The French vineyard is the same field attacked last year when the plants were only cut. But the security features installed after that incident kept authorities at bay while the group accomplished its mission yesterday.

Speaking for the group, Olivier Florent told Le Figero that they condemned the use of public funds for open-field testing of GMOs “that we do not want.”

Pitching tents in the rain near France’s National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) site in Colmar the night before, the group waited until 5 AM before converging on the site and locking the gates behind them. They uprooted all 70 plants, then submitted to arrest.

This is the second attack on GMO crops to make international news this year. In July dozens of people destroyed two experimental corn crops in Spain. In an anonymous press release, they wrote, “This kind of direct action is the best way to respond to the fait accompli policy through which the Generalitat, the State and the biotech multinationals have been unilaterally imposing genetically modified organisms.”

In the late 1990s, Indian farmers burnt Bt cotton fields in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Monsanto did not disclose to farmers that the GM seeds were experimental. “Despite the heavy use of chemical fertiliser, traces of which still can be observed in the field, the Bt plants grew miserably, less than half the size of the traditional cotton plants in the adjacent fields.”

After the Haiti earthquake this year, Monsanto offered 475 tons of hybrid corn and terminator vegetable seeds in partnership with USAID. In June, 10,000 Haitian farmers marched in protest of the “poison gift” which produces no viable seeds for future plantings and requires heavy chemical inputs. Haitian farm leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste observed that the biotech plan makes farmers dependent on multinational corporations.

In the US, GMOs were secretly foisted on the public in the mid-1990s, and only now is the US Supreme Court addressing the scourge. In June, the high court upheld partial deregulation of GM alfalfa, which permits limited planting while the USDA prepares an Environmental Impact Statement. Natural and organic alfalfa supply is threatened by the very real potential of GM contamination. This would destroy the organic meat and dairy industry.

Last Friday, a federal court took a tougher position on GM sugar beets. Judge Jeffrey S. White revoked USDA approval of the GM beet, while allowing for its planting this year only.

Also this month, a British farmer exposed that milk and meat from cloned animals had secretly entered the food supply.

Public opposition to GM crops has grown in recent years as more evidence surfaces that DNA-altered crops:

• Require massive chemical inputs which destroy local biodiversity and poison the water tables;
• Cross-pollinate with natural and weedy crops;
• Create superweeds; and
• Have been shown to cause organ damage, sterility, and diabetes and obesity in mammals.

Meanwhile, President Obama has stacked his Administration with biotech insiders going so far as to appoint Islam Siddiqui as Agriculture Trade Negotiator. Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and vice president of CropLife America, a biotech and pesticide trade group that lobbies to weaken environmental laws.

The US is pushing hard at the world to accept GM foods. Recently, the American Farm Bureau Federation called for stronger sanctions against the European Union for its GM crop ban.

But as governments and trade agreements circumvent the will of the people, some take matters into their own hands. The rise in GMO crop destruction is a clear indication that the world’s people reject chemical and genetic pollution of the food supply and the environment.

Related: Monsanto, Blackwater and GM crop saboteurs, 16 Sep 2010

GMO Crop Sabotage on the Rise: French citizens destroy trial vineyard | Food Freedom.

Julian Assange Says UK Government Messages Include Speculation He Was Framed

By UPI

May 21, 2013 “Information Clearing House” -”UPI” - Julian Assange said messages he got from a British agency included speculation he was framed by Swedish officials seeking his extradition.

The messages from the Government Communications Headquarters, obtained through an official request for information, included discussions by the government eavesdropping agency that speculated he was being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition for questioning on rape allegations, The Guardian reported Sunday.

Assange spoke about the messages Sunday night during an interview with the Spanish television program, “Salvados.”

The instant messages to which Assange had access remained unclassified by GCHQ.

Assange has spent the past 11 months in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden. He has maintained his innocence and said he feared he would be extradited to the United States. WikiLeaks posted millions of sensitive military and diplomatic documents and communiques

A GCHQ message from September 2012, read by Assange, allegedly said: “They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ. … It is definitely a fit-up. … Their timings are too convenient.”

Assange provided little explanation about exactly who wrote the messages, The Guardian said.

Assange said GCHQ was unaware it may have anything on him that wasn’t classified, The Guardian said.

“It won’t hand over any of the classified information,” he said. “But, much to its surprise, it has some unclassified information on us.”

Another instant message conversation, as read by Assange, from August 2012 called the WikiLeaks founder a “fool” if he thought he could wait out Sweden’s attempt to extradite him.

The agency confirmed it “responded formally to the subject who made the request. The disclosed material includes personal comments between some members of staff and do not reflect GCHQ’s policies or views in any way.”

Julian Assange Says UK Government Messages Include Speculation He Was Framed.

The US Is An Increasingly Unchecked Surveillance State

The US government extensively monitors its citizens’ internet activities, with dangerous effects on personal liberties.

By Murtaza Hussain

May 21, 2013 “Information Clearing House” -”Al Jazeera” -  The most egregious rights violations tend to happen against the voiceless; those who have neither the platform nor resources to articulate their grievances to the broader world.

Last week, however, the US Department of Justice was caught in a very public transgression against the freedom of an influential and empowered private organisation when it was revealed that it had engaged in a spying campaign against the Associated Press (AP) - one of the country’s largest news agencies.

In what has been described as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion“, AP revealed that Obama’s Department of Justice had engaged in a surveillance campaign targeting its reporters and editors. This campaign included the covert acquisition of phone records from AP staff; including from their home and personal cell numbers.

In a public letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, AP President Gary Pruitt said the surveillance would:

Reveal communications with confidential sources and disclose information… that the government has no conceivable right to know.

It would seem, however, that soliciting such confidential knowledge was just what the government was after, as it sought to obtain information regarding AP’s reporting on CIA operations in Yemen. Indeed, far beyond this incident of spying on the press, it has been demonstrated over the past several years that the US government under Obama has developed a seemingly insatiable appetite for its citizens’ private information. Furthermore - and to the detriment of the American right to privacy - they have shown few qualms about the means they are willing to employ to acquire such data.

Digital documentation
more: The US Is An Increasingly Unchecked Surveillance State.

Title: Researchers find high cesium in some Pacific plankton
Source: Kyodo
Date: May 22, 2013

Researchers find high cesium in some Pacific plankton

Scientists said Tuesday they have detected radioactive cesium from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in plankton collected from all 10 points in the Pacific they checked, with the highest levels at around 25 degrees north latitude and 150 degrees west longitude. [...]

The researchers collected plankton at 10 points in the Pacific from off Hokkaido to Guam between January and February 2012.

They detected cesium-134 in plankton at all 10 points. The density of radioactive cesium was the highest at 8.2 to 10.5 becquerels per kilogram in samples collected from waters around 25 degrees north latitude and 150 degrees west longitude. [...]

The density of cesium in seawater was highest in waters at around latitude 36 to 40 degrees north, the team said. [...]

“25 degrees north latitude and 150 degrees west longitude”

Kyodo: Highest levels of Fukushima contamination in plankton already EAST of Hawaii? (MAPS).

Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide—Featuring the Darth Vader Chemical

Posted on May 21, 2013 by The Other Mark

Institute for Responsible Technology

It was “supposed” to be harmless to humans and animals—the perfect weed killer. Now a groundbreaking article just published in the journal Entropy points to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, and more specifically its active ingredient glyphosate, as devastating—possibly “the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies.”

That’s right. The herbicide sprayed on most of the world’s genetically engineered crops—and gets soaked into the food portion—is now linked to “autism … gastrointestinal issues such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis and Crohn’s disease, obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression, cancer, cachexia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and ALS, among others.”

Enjoy this videotaped guided tour of Jeffrey Smith interviewing co-author Stephanie Seneff, PhD, who is a Senior Research Scientist at MIT. If you’ve already bogged down trying to work your way through the thick biochemistry jargon in the paper, this user-friendly but in-depth interview will give you great relief and insight.

Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide—Featuring the Darth Vader Chemical |.

There’s been a sea change in US opinion on the conflict

by Pamela Olson on May 21, 2013 4

Pamela Olson’s book tour for Fast Times in Palestine took her all over the US, including to California, Oklahoma, Washington, Colorado, and many major cities on the east coast. She wrote this blogpost describing her reception.

I resolved at the beginning not to sugarcoat anything or promote false equivalencies. In presentations and interviews, I was clear about the Wall stealing land, the horrors of “administrative detention,” and many other injustices. If people asked tough questions that required speaking about racism, oppression, and American support of a de facto apartheid situation, I answered forthrightly. (For an example, you can view my talk at the Palestine Center in DC here.)

I braced myself every time, waiting for the backlash.

To my shock, it never came.

People were receptive, interested, thoughtful, and sometimes skeptical, but almost never hostile or disbelieving. Some crowds were self-selected, but others were more mainstream, including a banquet in eastern Washington attended mostly by retirement-age pillars of the community.

At the banquet, one man asked a leading question that blamed the Palestinians for their plight, and another asked about Hamas’ charter. I answered calmly, offering historical and political context and analogies about Sinn Fein and Apartheid. The audience seemed to be nodding along with me, as if my answers made sense to them.

At the Upper West Side Barnes & Noble, a woman angrily accused me of not saying the Wall was built solely for security reasons. I thanked her for bringing it up and read the part of my book that talks about the Israeli army admitting parts of the Wall were routed based on settlement expansion plans, and the Shin Bet admitting the Wall wasn’t a very good security system anyway. Hundreds of Palestinians cross every day to work in Israel without a permit. According to the Shin Bet, the reason suicide bombings stopped in 2005 was because Hamas decided to end them and pursue a democratic political course.

And that was it. Those were the two most hostile encounters in nearly 50 venues in a dozen states and two dozen cities. I didn’t encounter anything like the anger, heckling, and censorship I would have expected had I done this ten or even five years ago.

It’s hard to over-state how much the climate has changed in the past decade. A filmmaker friend summed it up: You used to need extra security to bring a pro-Palestine speaker to campus. Now you need extra security to bring a pro-Israel speaker.

At Oklahoma University, when I spoke to students in the flagship Middle East studies program, I felt utterly redundant. They already knew everything I was saying. The argument in class wasn’t whether Israelis or Palestinians were to blame, but whether Israel had totally destroyed the two-state solution. (Some of the students thanked me for being straightforward and not dancing around the issues like most “experts” did. I told them that was one benefit of not having a mainstream career to lose.)

In the most remote place I spoke — Seminole State College in a small town in Oklahoma — the faculty were fascinated and expressed gratitude that I was bringing them “the other side of the story.” The students asked not whether my stories were true but how it felt to be in the middle of them. That was as big a surprise to me as any.

That’s not to say everything is perfect. Some journalists and professors thanked me for saying things they were still too afraid to say. I can’t say who or why because I don’t want to betray any confidences. But let’s just say people with buildings named after them tend to have more sway than people who don’t.

But those in power seem to be falling behind the grassroots surge in interest and knowledge about this conflict. People seem genuinely hungry for this information, told in a way they can digest and relate to, from a non-intimidating source.

Speaking as someone who used to be incredibly intimidated by anything having to do with the Middle East (because I was terrified of stepping on sensitivities and otherwise showing myself to be an ignorant jackass, or alternatively being duped by flowery language), I have a lot of empathy for these Americans. And I believe they can be reached.

Several people asked, “Are you giving these talks in right-wing pro-Israel venues as well?” I told them I doubt I would be invited, and in any case I tend not to put my energy there. I mentioned the polls that say 65% of Americans (or whatever) support Israel while 15% (or whatever) support Palestinians, and the rest don’t know. These look like hopelessly skewed statistics.

But in fact, probably less than 20% of Americans strongly support Israel. The rest just kind of blow in the prevailing winds. My theory is that if they can be told a fuller story in a way that respects their intelligence and speaks to their sensibilities, roughly half of Americans can likely be convinced to switch sides — not against Israel, but for peace and justice based on international law and respect for human rights for all. That’s where I’m putting my efforts.

And I’m finding, based on limited anecdotal evidence, that folks are more ripe for it than I dared hope.

One last incredibly encouraging sign: Most of you probably remember Bob Simon’s ground-breaking piece on 60 Minutes last year about Palestinian Christians (and Michael Oren’s hilarious “rebuttal”).

Someone who works at CBS told me they’re still dealing with the fallout. After the Israel lobby failed to kill the piece, the station received 32,000 angry emails (mostly form letters mobilized by various lobby organizations such as CAMERA). And that was just the beginning. One of the worst attacks was a slanderous ad in the Wall Street Journal that potentially endangered Bob Simon’s safety. My contact said it was the biggest “sh**storm” of Simon’s long career.

The chairman of CBS was brave enough to stand behind the piece, but he did request that they stay away from the topic for a while. Busy people get sick of dealing with this kind of nonsense, and there’s still a real fear among powerful folks of the taint of being accused of anti-Semitism. It’s like being accused of spousal abuse. Even if it’s not remotely true, it can stick to you like a bad rash.

But here’s the good news: The station also received 35,000 emails thanking them for showing what life is like for Palestinian Christians. And most of the appreciative emails were from individuals, not partisan listservs.

It made me feel more hope than I had in a long time.

There’s been a sea change in US opinion on the conflict | Mondoweiss.

May 21, 2013

Is this the best that Christianity can do?

Editor

The Holy Land needs advocates for the truth. “It is the truth, and only the truth, that will lead to peace and justice”

By Stuart Littlewood

While the Jewish state was putting its finishing touches to Operation Cast Lead (the horrific blitzkrieg launched over Christmas-New Year 2008/09 against Gaza’s civilians, including the Christian community there), the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, joined Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on a visit to the former Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau to demonstrate their joint solidarity against the extremes of hostility and genocide.

“This is a pilgrimage… to a place of utter profanity – a place where the name of God was profaned because the image of God in human beings was abused and disfigured,” said the Archbishop. “How shall we be able to read the signs of the times, the indications that evil is gathering force once again and societies are slipping towards the same collective corruption and moral sickness that made the shoah [holocaust] possible?”

Complicity through silence

Read the signs? He needed to look no further than the hell-hole that the Holy Land had been turned into by Israel’s occupation and unfettered aggression, with Britain’s blessing… and, dare one say, without too much fuss from England’s established church either.

If ever there was a place where “the name of God was profaned” the so-called Holy Land is it.

And in 2010, just a year after that slaughter, the archbishop announced he was planning a visit to Gaza. I asked his Lambeth Palace office if he would sit down and talk with the elected prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, man of God to man of God (for Mr Haniyeh is an imam). Would he do Gaza (and all of us) proud by spending a generous amount of his time with senior members of the Islamic faith?

His office didn’t reply.

According to the archbishop’s website he did none of those things. And on his return he said nothing about Gaza in the House of Lords, where he had the ear of Parliament and the support of 25 other Church of England bishops.

Yet he began his Ecumenical letter that Easter by declaring: “Christians need to witness boldly and clearly”….

I was told afterwards that the Israelis initially refused the archbishop access to Gaza and only at the last minute granted him a piddling 90 minutes, just enough for a hurried visit to the Ahli hospital and no more.

But this didn’t stop him hobnobbing with the chief rabbinate, paying his respects to Yad Vashem and the holocaust, and talking with the president of Israel. Didn’t Lambeth Palace realize that his meekly accepting a situation where Israel’s thugs prevented him seeing what horrors they had inflicted, only served to legitimize the Israelis’ illegal occupation and give the Anglican Church’s stamp of approval to the vicious siege, the continuing air strikes, the persecution of Muslim and Christian communities and the regime’s utter contempt for international law and human rights?

When is ethnic cleansing not ethnic cleansing? When it’s “Newtonian energy transfer”

In June 2011 Kairos Palestine, the voice of Palestinian Christians, felt it necessary to give the archbishop of Canterbury a strong ticking-off for remarks he made during a BBC interview.

Rifat Kassis, coordinator of Kairos Palestine, said he was “deeply troubled” by the archbishop’s “inaccurate and erroneous remarks” about the situation of Christians in the Middle East. He called the archbishop’s failure to mention the Israeli occupation and the regime’s oppressive policies “shocking”.

In a letter to Williams, he said:

You know very well that in the Bethlehem area alone there are 19 illegal Israeli settlements… and the wall that have devoured Christian lands and put Bethlehem in a chokehold. You know well that only 13 per cent of Bethlehem area is available for Palestinian use and the wall isolates 25 per cent of the Bethlehem area’s agricultural land. Not to mention the situation of Christians in Jerusalem, which you know very well, since you should have received reports from the Anglican bishop in the city whose residency permit was denied by the occupying power.

Mr Kassis ended by saying: “We would like to remind Your Grace that Christian Palestinians need advocates for the truth. It is the truth, and only the truth, that will lead to peace and justice in our home.”

So what did Archbishop Rowan Williams say to the BBC that so infuriated his Palestinian brethren? Apparently, it was his remarks about the ethnic cleansing of Christians, referring to extreme pressure in Iraq while suggesting that the exodus of Christians from Palestine was due to much more “un-dramatic” pressure. Williams seemed happy to use the term “ethnic cleansing” in connection with Iraq but not Israel’s programme to dispossess and terrorize Palestinians.

He was also content with the UK government’s attitude. “I think the issue of religious freedom in general has very high priority in the Foreign Office at the moment. So I hope that continues.”

The truth is that the British Foreign Office is infested with pro-Israel placemen and has not lifted a finger to ensure religious or any other freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Williams went on the say:

I think there are still perhaps too few people in this country who are aware of the haemorrhaging of Christian populations from the Holy Land. The fact [is] that Bethlehem, a majority Christian city just a couple of decades ago, is now very definitely a place where Christians are a marginalized minority. We want that to be a little bit higher on people’s radar…

Interviewer: Would you see what’s happening in Bethlehem as another example of what you’ve described as ethnic cleansing?

Archbishop: It’s not ethnic cleansing exactly because it’s been far less deliberate than that I think. What we’ve seen though is a kind of Newtonian passing-on of energy or force from one body to another so that some Muslim populations in the West Bank, under pressure, move away from certain areas like Hebron, move into other areas like Bethlehem. And there’s nowhere much else for Christian populations to go except away from Palestine.

The Archbishop’s comments were “faulty and offensive”, according to Kassis, especially his claim that Muslims coming into the Bethlehem area, where space is limited, were forcing Christians out.

And I daresay exiled Palestinian Christians will be relieved to hear that their misfortune is all down to Newtonian energy effects.

Now that Williams has gone, what are we to make of the new archbishop, Justin Welby, who came from nowhere and has Jewish immigrant roots? He was “accelerated” up the ladder and served as Bishop of Durham for barely five minutes before landing the top job. It makes you wonder what influences are at work behind the scenes. Welby is touted as an expert in conflict resolution although he is not known for his concern about the Holy Land. Indeed, the Jewish Chronicle reported that Welby helped mount a Holocaust Memorial Day exhibition in Liverpool Cathedral and abstained in the vote at the Anglican Synod which endorsed the EAPPI, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel which provides protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitors and reports human rights abuses, and supports Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace.

Frankly, anyone who cannot bring himself to give wholehearted backing to a worthy humanitarian project like EAPPI, shouldn’t be leading a great Christian church.

It’s a religious war

The residency permit issue mentioned by Rifat Kassis referred to the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem, Suheil Dawani, who is a classic victim of the evil machinations of the occupation. The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem covers Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Dawani was installed in April 2007, but in March 2011 Israel cancelled his residency permit, making it impossible for him to carry out his duties properly. As a non-Israeli he needed a temporary residence permit. The Israelis played silly-buggers, initially granting one then turning him down.

Here’s the explanation.

The bishop is a native of the Holy Land and has spent most of his life and ministry there, but cannot obtain either citizenship or legal residence in Israel, since he was born in Nablus, in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, but has not been annexed to Israel. East Jerusalem, on the other hand, where the Anglican Cathedral and Diocesan offices are situated, was also occupied at the same time, but Israel annexed it and considers it part of its national territory (although no other country in the world recognizes this annexation). Therefore, Bishop Dawani is considered by Israel to be a foreigner who can only visit – let alone live in – East Jerusalem with a special permit, which the Israeli authorities can either grant or deny at their sole discretion.

Dawani was wide open to this sort of dirty trick. After six months of aggravation and international pressure the illegal occupiers granted residency permits to the bishop and his family. But here’s the catch: those permits will have to be renewed when they expire, whenever that may be or whenever the Israelis choose.

Do Christian clergy need an army thunder flash up their collective cassock before they understand there’s a religious war going on in the Holy Land and the churches of Western Christendom, regrettably, are not engaging in it, even though the source from which they draw their authority, inspiration and teachings is right there? They much prefer to appease the invader regime and leave their brother churches in Jerusalem and the Middle East to fight alone.

Disgraceful.

The Zionist wing of the Church of England?

Ever heard of the CMJ (the Church’s Ministry among Jewish People)?

Apparently, it has a proud 200-year history and feels a need to provide in-depth teaching on the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. In its statement of faith the CMJ says Christians have “a special responsibility to love, defend and share the Gospel with God’s historic, chosen people, the Jews”. (See this and that.)

And this is the CMJ’s attitude to the Israel-Palestine struggle:

• CMJ believes that both Jewish and gentile believers (including our Palestinian brothers and sisters) are united in the one “olive tree”. In fact, Jesus has made Jew and gentile believers one “and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”

The reality is that the Israelis are still building the hated barrier and love nothing better than destroying whole groves of olive trees.

• Gentiles are “fellow-citizens with God’s people”… God loves all people equally. This means that he loves the Israelis and the Palestinians equally.

So, we can safely ignore all claims, including those made by the CMJ, that Jews are God’s “chosen ones”?

• “CMJ… has always seen the return of the Jewish people to their ancient land, and on a national scale to their Messiah, as a precursor to the return of Jesus in glory.”

Their return is achieved by expelling the Arabs (whom God loves equally), slaughtering those who resist and trashing just about all of God’s commandments. Jesus is really going to be impressed when he arrives.

• “CMJ rejoices that, after 2000 years… the Jewish people now, at last, have returned to the land from which the majority were dispersed in AD70…”

Rejoice in the Jewish occupation and you rejoice in the murderous crime spree that goes with it.

• “CMJ recognizes that the state of Israel was set up as a result of a majority vote of the United Nations in 1947… However, the ministry does not hold any official position as to the appropriate location of the borders of the state. “

If CMJ recognizes the UN’s 1947 Partition Plan, then it should also accept the borders on which it was based. Instead, the CMJ appears to advocate a “blank cheque” for the Zionist entity’s territorial greed

• CMJ ministry recognizes that the Israelis, after 2,000 years of anti-Semitism, face a resurgence of anti-Semitism, a military threat from various nations, Palestinian terrorism and a threat to the stability of their safe homeland through demographic factors.”

Is it any wonder? Israel, with its nuclear arsenal and American-supplied state-of-the-art weaponry, easily outguns its neighbours in the Middle East and even threatens Europe. Its lack of restraint and contempt for international law, demonstrated repeatedly, makes it the prime menace to the region. Meanwhile Palestinians have every right to defend their homes as best they can.

It’s obvious that the CMJ adopts the Zionist position and encourages the physical restoration of the Jewish people to the biblical land of Israel, regardless of the suffering and injustice this causes. Nevertheless, the CMJ was adopted as an official ministry of the Church of England in 1995, Archbishop George Carey presiding, and has been operating in the shadows all this time. Is this the Church of England’s official Zionist wing?

Carey is remembered for opposing the Church of England’s divestment from companies, such as Caterpillar, which profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, saying he was “ashamed of being an Anglican”.

Signs of hope from Scotland

Altogether it’s been a dismal performance by most (though not all) churches. But this week, hopefully, the Church of Scotland will give a new lead at its Assembly in Edinburgh to stop the rot.

Although under great pressure to rewrite the Church’s report The Inheritance of Abraham?, which challenges the Jews’ claim to a divine right to the Palestinians’ homeland and is condemned by a furious Jewish lobby as a “truly hurtful” and “inquisition-era” document, they actually beefed it up! For example, the revised version restates emphatically that they do not support the idea that ancient scripture offers anyone a privileged right to territory, and it not only urges the UK government and the European Union to use pressure to stop further expansion of Israeli settlements, but also to remove the existing ones.

Bravo, Scotland!

---

Also see:

• Stuart Littlewood, “Church of Scotland unmoved by Zionist bullies“

Is this the best that Christianity can do? | Redress Information & Analysis.

By JG Vibes
Intellihub.com
May 21, 2013

It seems as if every day now there is a new story of someone catching extreme police brutality on camera.  The sad truth of the matter is that this happens a lot more than everyday, it probobly happens many times each hour all throughout the country.  Many times it takes months, possibly even years for the evidence to finally see the light of day.  In this case in Canada, it took about 2 years.

The Star reported that:

A Durham Region police officer threatened to beat up a man and plant cocaine on him during a one-sided, expletive-filled confrontation, a graphic video shows.  “I hurt people . . . and then I make their cocaine f—ing appear,” the armed constable barks into the face of the burly, young man. “You see how I work. . . . See what I do.”

The 8½-minute video, which appeared recently on YouTube, also features the constable appearing to provoke the bald man into hitting him during the sometimes tense grilling beside a house in Oshawa in late 2011.  The Star is not aware of the context of the incident outside what is seen in the video.

The video can be seen below:

Cop on Video: “I Hurt People and Then I Make Their F#%*ing Cocaine Appear” - | Intellihub.com.

March Against Monsanto - Victoria

Sat May 25 2013 at 08:00 pm Add to calendar

Venue : Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Created By : March Against Monsanto

Promote Join this Event

Sponsored links

Saturday May 25
12:30 pm: meet at Legislative Bldgs.
1:00 pm: march!
Return to the leg for guest speakers, and live entertainment

March Against Monsanto - Victoria | Victoria.

Psychopaths in the C-suite: Fred Kiel at TEDxBGI - YouTube.

One of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the grass roots food freedom fight is social media.  Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and many more networks allow people to instantly connect and provide a platform for information to be passed on exponentially. Facebook and Google are the two biggest websites in the entire world, and their reach is nearly unlimited.

Last week, the Monsanto Company made it very clear that they were under the gun via social media, and they went on the defense, weakly claiming that those who object with their toxic seeds and deadly farming methods were “elitist,”  thereby attempting to undermine us as snobbish people who don’t see the big picture and who don’t care about world hunger.

This week, they’ve upped their game.  Mysterious things have been occurring on the social networks: posts have disappeared, some posts are hidden from the timelines of readers, and trolls abound on pages promoting this weekend’s March Against Monsanto, happening worldwide on May 25.

Like any cornered rat, the leviathan seed company can see the very large threat coming their way, and it appears that they are pulling out all the stops to fight as dirty as they can.  But the movement against the company is so powerful, that despite paid-off politicians and billions of dollars in the war chest, Monsanto knows that they’ve been outmatched.  What we’re seeing now are the last, desperate attempts to keep the general public from learning about the manmade global disaster that was created by Monsanto.

On my own page, I found an interesting anomaly.  I posted this yesterday:

My children’s first protest march!!! Any ideas for our signs?

Everything you need to know and more about the March Against Monsanto. Don’t forget to subscribe to our email updates while you’re there:http://bit.ly/106qja2

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The thing that was very strange about this is that, at the bottom, you can see, it only got 67 views nearly 14 hours after I posted it.  The posts that I shared above and below it all had hundreds of views.  I asked some friends to check their timelines, and this particular post did not show up.  They had to actually go to the page and look for it to find it tucked in near the bottom.

If I hadn’t heard from Tami Canal, the driving force behind the March Against Monsanto’s Facebook page, I would have thought it was merely a fluke.  But mysterious things have been happening there as well.

“Events are disappearing, posts are being put on city event pages that say events are cancelled. In no way, shape or form, has ANY event been cancelled. I believe Monsanto is behind this. Some of the people on the page that are commenting have newly made profiles and seemingly these profiles were made strictly to cause problems and get a rise out of our participants on the page.”

Monsanto has openly carried on an internet war with anti-GMO activists for years.  Back in 2002, Jay Byrne,  the former director of Monsanto’s Internet outreach, had some advice for colleagues:

“…’think of the Internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed.’

While he was working for Monsanto, Byrne told the internet newsletter Wow that he “spends his time and effort participating” in web discussions about biotech. He singled out the site AgBioWorld, where he “ensures his company gets proper play”. AgBioWorld is the site on which “Andura Smetacek” launched her campaign.

The biotech companies know that they will never conquer new markets while activists are able to expose the way their operations damage food security and consumer choice. ” (source)

The Monsanto Company’s current overt tactics are to try and polish their very tarnished image by portraying themselves as do-gooders set on feeding the world, while painting anti-GMO protesters as uncaring, selfish individuals that haven’t given hungry Third World residents a passing thought.  Less overt are these guerrilla internet shills, causing divisiveness in the movement by starting arguments on forums and in comment threads on social media, and outright passing on misinformation.

Unfortunately, Facebook seems to have the back of the trolls. Occupy Monsanto‘s page was actually banned for three days when the owner publicly outed an abusive PM from a troll. The person who wrote the letter faced no repercussions from Facebook.  Other anti-GMO activists have announced that their posts have been hidden or otherwise censored, just like mine was.

Despite the rumors started that events for this Saturday’s March Against Monsanto have been cancelled, or that times have been changed, this is absolutely untrue. Canal reiterated, “ In no way, shape or form, has ANY event been cancelled.” If you are planning to go to an event, rest assured, the events will go on as planned, despite the sneaky tactics of a desperate company.

Keep calm and don’t allow yourself to be provoked on Saturday.  Anti-GMO activists are on the side of “good” in this battle, so it’s important to keep to the high road.  Expect the presence of agent provocateurs, lots of law enforcement, and devious tactics to try to discredit the movement.  The keys to successful resistance are unity, information, and public perception.

According to an article on Natural Society, Monsanto has allied with the notorious mercenary security group, Blackwater (now known as Academi) in the fight against anti-GMO protesters :

Monsanto and Blackwater are indeed working together to target anti-Monsanto activists and organizations. Known as far back as 2010, it was unveiled that Blackwater’s client list included Monsanto, Chevron, Walt Disney and many more. According to documents obtained by Scahill, it was also revealed that Monsanto was willing to pay upwards of $500,000 in order for Blackwater to join anti-Monsanto activist groups and infiltrate the ranks. Furthermore, a number of internet-based tactics could be utilized as incognito PR for Monsanto, who undoubtedly knew opposition would mount against their GMO crops as more individuals became aware of the dangers.

Don’t expect Monsanto to play fair.  Tami Canal doesn’t.

“I’m not really surprised by Monsanto and their tactics….their bottom line is at stake and as they have demonstrated time and again, profit is their main objective at any expense, whether it be humanity or the environment. I encourage our participants to remain peaceful on Saturday. Do not let the paid shills entice you to violence. March Against Monsanto is a peaceful campaign and our voices will resonate much more loudly if we remain calm.”

Saturday promises to be one of the biggest worldwide protests that has ever taken place, with over two million people signed up to attend marches all over the globe.  My children and I will absolutely be taking part in the historic event.  Make a sign and join in – there is sure to be a March near you!

About the author:

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

- See more at: http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/monsanto-declares-social-media-war-against-protesters-05212013#sthash.wh9izPk7.dpuf

One of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the grass roots food freedom fight is social media.  Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and many more networks allow people to instantly connect and provide a platform for information to be passed on exponentially. Facebook and Google are the two biggest websites in the entire world, and their reach is nearly unlimited.

Last week, the Monsanto Company made it very clear that they were under the gun via social media, and they went on the defense, weakly claiming that those who object with their toxic seeds and deadly farming methods were “elitist,”  thereby attempting to undermine us as snobbish people who don’t see the big picture and who don’t care about world hunger.

This week, they’ve upped their game.  Mysterious things have been occurring on the social networks: posts have disappeared, some posts are hidden from the timelines of readers, and trolls abound on pages promoting this weekend’s March Against Monsanto, happening worldwide on May 25.

Like any cornered rat, the leviathan seed company can see the very large threat coming their way, and it appears that they are pulling out all the stops to fight as dirty as they can.  But the movement against the company is so powerful, that despite paid-off politicians and billions of dollars in the war chest, Monsanto knows that they’ve been outmatched.  What we’re seeing now are the last, desperate attempts to keep the general public from learning about the manmade global disaster that was created by Monsanto.

- See more at: http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/monsanto-declares-social-media-war-against-protesters-05212013#sthash.wh9izPk7.dpuf

One of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the grass roots food freedom fight is social media.  Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and many more networks allow people to instantly connect and provide a platform for information to be passed on exponentially. Facebook and Google are the two biggest websites in the entire world, and their reach is nearly unlimited.

Last week, the Monsanto Company made it very clear that they were under the gun via social media, and they went on the defense, weakly claiming that those who object with their toxic seeds and deadly farming methods were “elitist,”  thereby attempting to undermine us as snobbish people who don’t see the big picture and who don’t care about world hunger.

This week, they’ve upped their game.  Mysterious things have been occurring on the social networks: posts have disappeared, some posts are hidden from the timelines of readers, and trolls abound on pages promoting this weekend’s March Against Monsanto, happening worldwide on May 25.

Like any cornered rat, the leviathan seed company can see the very large threat coming their way, and it appears that they are pulling out all the stops to fight as dirty as they can.  But the movement against the company is so powerful, that despite paid-off politicians and billions of dollars in the war chest, Monsanto knows that they’ve been outmatched.  What we’re seeing now are the last, desperate attempts to keep the general public from learning about the manmade global disaster that was created by Monsanto.
- See more at: http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/monsanto-declares-social-media-war-against-protesters-05212013#sthash.wh9izPk7.dpuf

Monsanto Declares a Sneaky Social Media War Against Protesters |.