Folks, I am starting this thread to address a very difficult subject, but one which urgently NEEDS to be addressed. I am well aware that even mentioning this topic will make many folks angry ... and I'm sorry for that. My purpose is not to incite anger, it's to do what I can toward saving the freedom of my country, the United States of America, from takeover by a dictatorship ... in precisely the same way and using nearly identical tactics as those employed by Adolph Hitler in his takeover of Germany in 1933: by taking advantage of a dire national threat to invoke "emergency powers" that allowed him to systematically suspend civil liberties, silence his rivals and stack the positions of governmental power with people loyal to him, and in short order to dissolve the German republic, eliminate elections, and establish himself as a supreme dictator.

Since this is such a controversial topic, I would like to request a few specific "ground rules" on this thread. Of course the usual avoidance of angry, insulting or confrontational posts applies, but beyond that I would like to request that this be a thread dedicated to jointly searching for truth rather than simply asserting our own opinions. What this means is supporting you say here "as if" you were presenting a logical case to an open-minded jury. That means backing up your facts with documented sources and your conclusions with reasoned arguments stated in such a way that folks can follow the logic of what you say and make up their own minds about whether it holds water or not. No unsupported assertions, no unfounded emotional appeals, no meaningless statements to the effect that only America-haters would suggest such things, and so on. If you're not able or willing to participate on those terms, that's perfectly okay ... just don't participate! But without a framework of agreement that we will jointly examine these issues rather than shout, assert and emote about them, we cannot possibly discuss them ... and I for one believe it is critically urgent that we discuss them. If you disagree, again that's perfectly fine; just give this thread a wide berth.

Thanks!

Love,
Greg

Hi all,

Everyone is aware of the civil rights concerns growing out of the mushrooming "War on Terrorism" that was launched in the aftermath of 9/11. We've talked about these concerns on many threads and will continue to talk about them. But my first area of concern here is, how did this crisis come about? What really happened on 9/11, and why has there NEVER been an independent investigation to address the large number of glaring mysteries and inconsistencies in the "official" version? Among these puzzling inconsistencies are the following facts:

1. It is now well established that investigation into terrorist plots that pointed very clearly to the WTC attack were deliberately suppressed prior to the investigation (one of the principal whistlebolowers about this obstruction, FBI Agent Colleen Rowley is on Time magazine's "person of the year" cover ... not an honor accorded to a quack with unsubstantiated allegations.) And she is far from the only field agent to claim that top brass firmly called them off of investigations that were pointing very directly to the coming disaster.
   
   Perhaps the most compelling testimony in this regard is that of David Schippers, who was approached by several FBI operatives who absolutely knew of the coming attack and were hopping mad because they were being silenced by superiors in Washington. Now David Schippers is not some liberal activist out to get the Bush administration ... to the contrary he is a highly conservative staunch republican and was actually the top prosecuting lawyer in the Clinton impeachment! His involvement stems from running up against the same complaint from FBI agents during the Clinton administration, saying that Clinton "shut them up" and didn't even want to know the names of Al-Quaeda operatives when they were positively identified. So when, under a Republican administration, he started hearing the same things from Chicago and Minnesota FBI agents (and other agents he has not named because they are not under whistleblower protection) regarding suppressed intelligence about 9/11, he quickly called up Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense and his political compatriot -- RUMSFELD WOULD NOT EVEN TALK TO HIM! Our Secretary of defense, with whom Schippers had been on good terms and personally connected within Republican ranks, passed him off to assistants who gave feeble excuses why they weren't interested in his information ... finally promising that Rumsfeld woud call him "the next day" ... but it never happened. He was stonewalled. After this rude awakening, Schippers lamented, "I'll tell you something. This is one of the things that, to me, it is almost inconceivable, inconceivable that with the knowledge they had that they would turn their back ... there never would have been an attack on the Trade Towers. But, I don't know, as a human being, as a former prosecutor, as a lawyer and a guy who represents police and agents all over the United States, it is inconceivable to me that those bureaucrats in Washington would turn their back on the obvious for their own purposes." Here is a link to one of David Schipper's interviews where he outlines his experiences: Alex Jones interview with David Schippers.
   
2. It has never been explained why the most fundamental automatic procedures for dealing with an "off flight plan" airplane were not followed on 9/11. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Condoleeza Rice offered the foolish explanation that "we had never thought of such a thing happening, it took everybody by surprise, nobody knew what to do." Anybody remember that? It was COMPLETELY untrue ... and it is not even close to reasonable that a woman in her position as National Security Adviser would not have known that the scenario was WELL prepared for, had been thought out in great detail in numerous strategic planning sessions, and there were well-established and PUBLICLY PUBLISHED standard operating procedures (see www.faa.gov} for such an occurrence. These procedures involved first attempting radio contact with the straying craft, then if not possible to IMMEDIATELY scramble interceptor jets to escort the craft, followed by a check list of actions to be taken to attempt communication and to force the craft out of the air if it did not respond. These procedures were not only well established on paper, they had actually been put into effect before with straying craft (including a corporate Lear jet a few years ago), and went smoothly, exactly as planned. There are military pilots standing by 24 hours a day for exactly this purpose, and according to S.O.P., aircraft are to be scrambled and IN THE AIR within fifteen minutes of an airplane's unexplained departure from flight plan. This does NOT require authorization from top brass or the White House, it is an AUTOMATIC procedure (which in fact can only be STOPPED by orders from the highest command levels.) Yet it was an hour and a half AFTER the craft were known to be hijacked before any military craft left the ground. You would expect a critical failure like this to be the subject of immediate and intensive investigation, wouldn't you? But no, it has NEVER been addressed by the administration or the "investigation committee" Bush reluctantly empowered under pressure, after having stated STRONGLY that there would be NO investigation into what happened, as it would "distract" the government from important retaliatory actions. Friends, anyone who doesn't smell a rat in that scenario has lost their olfactory organs!

There are also many other indications which we can discuss later if there's interest, that the administration officials able to do so, deliberately allowed the attack to happen. That's a horrible thing to say, I know, but looking at the facts squarely leaves little room for any other interpretation.

Why? Well, a dire crisis that creates widespread fear and panic being used as an excuse to quickly grab war powers and push through legislation expanding executive power and secrecy and bypassing civil rights (that would not have had a snowball's chance in hell of passing BEFORE 9/11) is way too close a parallel to Hitler's power grab in 1933 to ignore. Here's a brief synopsis of what happened in Germany in 1933:

• On February 27, 1933, the German Parliament (Reichstag) - a national symbol of German pride - was burned down. A Dutch Communist named Marinus van der Lubbe was found at the scene and charged with arson (and later executed).
  
  
• Historians do not agree whether the Nazis intentionally set the Reichstag fire in order to create a national crisis, or whether they simply were opportunistic, although there is significant evidence of Nazi participation. In either case, the event was used as justification for a sharp curtailment of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. Chancellor Hitler invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, permitting the suspension of civil liberties in time of national emergency. His "Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State" abrogated several constitutional protections, including freedom of the press and the right to public assembly, the right to privacy of postal and electronic communications, protection against unlawful searches and seizures and others. A supplemental decree created the SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security) Federal police agencies (Homeland Security?)
  
  
• In the ensuing months the Nazis repeatedly used the tactic of creating a "law and order" crisis so that they could provide solutions which further eroded civil liberties and entrenched their power. Individual leaders of the German states were systematically replaced by Nazi bureaucrats and it was eventually declared that the states' rights to individual self-determination guaranteed by the German constitution were "no longer needed."
  
  
• Shortly thereafter, the Reichstag under Hitler's direction passed the "Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation," also known as the Enabling Law, essentially granting Adolph Hitler dictatorial power.

The parallels are ominous, and the clear message of the German experience is that a democracy can be destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority.

The fabrications of the US administration in the wake of 9/11, followed by a relentless expansion of Federal power, military buildup and dismantling of civil liberties don't PROVE such a connection or intention ... but they DO indicate that we are being lied to and manipulated for SOME purpose ... and if we fail to at least seriously consider the obvious one, we do ourselves no service at all. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Love,
Greg

As to the question of the thread... Yes it can happen here. Anything can happen. WW1 and 2 are proof of that.

And as I asked on another thread "are we appeasing Saddam as we did Hittler... until it was too late?"

This should be quite a thread, Greg, Brave are you to bring it forth.

As a Canadian, I watch and listen, well aware of my goverment's refusal to back up US without UN. ......Waiting to see the outcome.

"Be still my beating heart"

I also notice that the news we get here is so much vaster than the one my friend gets in the US. In fact he complains that not much information is given out. I'm not there, so I can't know really what you all are listen too.

I shall sit this one out and read what other knowflakes will bring to this very interesting post

Good thread, Greg.

You know my husband has talked to me often about just the things you cited here concerning 9/11. Even on the day it all was taking place he wondered why there were no military planes up there after these off course airliners. He has always suspected that something was amiss. He also talked to me about the FBI and David Schippers. He saw an interview with David Schippers on TV one night and that even further convinced him that something just was not right. He told me he has always felt that the U.S. government gathered the armada of ships together at Pearl Harbor to bait the Japanese into that attack so that our government could justify entering into WWll. If you remember the people of this country did not want to get involved in WWll and strongly opposed it until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He has always felt that our government had full knowledge of what was going to happen on 9/11. For that reason I am not shocked by the implication of your thread. I have to do some thinking on it all before I post anymore about it though. I do remember the Lear jet incident you cited. The golf pro Paine Webber was on board that Lear jet and the pilot had a heart attack if I recall correctly. The plane just drifted on auto pilot before it ran out of gas and crashed, killing Paine Webber and all aboard. The military jets were following that plane as soon it went off it's flight pattern and intended to shoot it down it if was going to crash in a populated area.

I think this is going to be a very interesting thread. Because there are questions that were brought up that the Bush administration did not respond to at the time, and still haven't answered.

Love, Connie

Hi Greg ,

Okay. For the moment, let's say you are right for all intents and purposes. Since you are making comparisions, let's take it one step further. Hitler and the Nazis had a hidden agenda (at first) and that was a genocide of a group of people that they believe was beneath them. They were convinced that the Aryan race was superior in every way. The poor economy, diseases etc. were blamed on the Jews. At the same time it was convenient for the Nazis to "lump" gypsys, homosexuals, the mental retarded etc. into this "lesser" group.

One can only guess that eventually the outcome would be global power for Hitler. But this hidden agenda, the Final Solution was a complete elimination of a group of people at all costs. Even when Hitler was losing the war, all resources were still diverted to the Final Solution. The only way Hitler could carry out the Final Solution was to be in complete and total power. A dictatorship.

I can somewhat understand the comparisions regarding a democracy being destroyed when you said:

In reply to:

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The parallels are ominous, and the clear message of the German experience is that a democracy can be destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority.

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Does the comparision end there? The ultimate goal of destroying democracy of Hitler's Germany was the complete and total annihilation of a group of people. This Final Solution could not be have been accomplished in a demorcracy.

What is the purpose of destroying the demorcracy we know of today. Is it global power? To what end? Is there a hidden agenda? If there is, then what is it? An elimination of a group of people? Genocide? What is the comparision now? Questions, questions . . . so many questions .

Sabra

Greg..........I for one am certainly not angry with what you've presented in this thread....

In reality, I'm very grateful! Grateful, because I think it's vital that people be aware of what you (and many, many others ) believe has been happening in our country and what eventually could happen! .....if we let it.... *sigh*

The patterns between what happened in Hitler's Germany, and what's happening here, are too close for comfort...

I want to be informed...I want to be aware...and I want to know what I as one individual can do to help preserve our freedoms....


Love, an ernest and concerned
Rainbow

Hi Sabra...*sigh*...I'm not Greg, but it's my understanding that, yes, it is to eventually eliminate and subjugate a group of people.......those who do not hold the money and power; those who are not part of the elite;.....and I think that would be us...

Luv,
Rainbow

(my people were pretty much subjugated once, as were yours, and I'd hate to see a repeat of that).....

In reply to:

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eventually eliminate and subjugate a group of people

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The group of people that I have seen eliminated are not U.S. citizens by our government. Take a look at Iraq.

Show me . . . where a group of people in the U.S. have been eliminated or will be eradicated on a massive scale.

Sabra

HI guys

WOW - so much here - I just woke up so I need coffee and some time to put thoughts together. But Sabra, my first thought at your "show me" question would be to say native americans, although that is not anything to do with the current administration, obviously. Just a reminder that even in North America (because the British and the Cdn govn't were equally destructive in their treatment of native peoples - and continue to be so.)

I also think Rainbow hits the nail on the head by saying that it seems that we, the people with little money and power (relatively speaking) are the targets here, as opposed to a particular race, as in Hilter's regime. Although, one could make a convincing case asserting that the Muslim population in the western world are really bearing the brunt of this current law-and-order-crises. I'll need to really weigh that thought and it's implications before I say anymore....

I will come back later today with a longer, more fact-based post to provide the reasons behind these opinions of mine. And they are just opinions....but hopefully can contribute some food for thought for someone

Love,
Terri

You're a brave soul Greg! ~and thanks for posting this. The parallels are obvious to me.

Like Terri, I'll also be back, and maybe even help supply some links/info to support the topic.
But for now, us gals have to get to work!

Reading the posts so far has opened tiny windows in my mind, and from what Sabra and Terri have put forth, it is getting clearer to me that the perpose behind many of the things happening is targeted outside US.

But if I may add, do you think what is happening is a result of the fear of loosing global power. The world is changing and US position is also. The powers are slowly shifting... could all that is going on an attempt to regain or retain this power position?

... and nothing to do with the elimination of a group of people?... hopefully

Hello Knowflakes,
Greg, great post. Lets see how much info can be brought to the surface

I have read a report from a former aerospace engineer concerning the Boeing 767 & 757 that was used in Sept 11. I also remember reading something similar way before Sept 11 concerning anti-hijacking equipment on airplanes. According to this engineer both 767 & 757 had this type of equipment. The Department of Defense had a research program called Defence Advanced Projects Agency.(DARPA) The agency had created a black box specifically to prevent a hijacking. If communications were stopped between the plane and ground control or the flight was altered, the DARPA black boxes would allow a covert Federal ground control to REMOTLY fly the plane to safety. With the on board flight controls deactivated on the plane- the hijacked plane would be flown remote control.
Now, how could the planes be hijacked? Better yet did they?
Something to think about....

Woody

Hello everyone!

Greg, I don't think that the time is right to criticize your goverment in the public forum. American soldiers are waiting in the desert to start a war and you're spreading such a terrible propaganda.

You do live in a real democracy, trust me, because in some other "democratic" countries they would forbid this site immediately and probably prosecute you.

How could you compare Bush administration to Hitler's Germany in 1933??? The things you wrote, I don't see them as facts, I see them as your personal opinion based on the readings of several articles in newspapers or sth you watched on TV. Those are your "facts" and your thruth.

You don't have to agree with Bush, but please don't compare America today to Nazi Germany, it sounds disgusting, from my point of view.

I'm sure that Saddam and his people are enjoying all this anti-american propaganda enormously.

Have a nice day
El

Hi Greg,

I just can't belive that USA government would let Sept 11 happen !!! I just can't...

Hi All

Eleonora, good to see you here again ... sadly, the things I wrote about are facts, and not just "my truth." Certainly I have included my own opinions about what those facts might mean, but I do differentiate between fact and opinion. The FACT is (and this is verified by official records as well as the testimony of numerous officials both within and without the Bush administration) that there were no fighter jets scrambled to intercept the hijacked airplanes even though this is a mandatory, automatic procedure when a commercial airline goes off course and breaks radio contact. There is no arguing with that, it is the truth.

This automatic standard operating procedure has been routinely followed hundreds of times in the past with minor incidents that turned out to be no real threat at all, without a hitch or a failure (like the golf pro's learjet, for one example that is well-known publicly) yet on the morning of the greatest threat ever posed by such an anomaly, the standard procedure failed not once but four separate times, with four airplanes that were KNOWN to be hijacked within moments after they changed course and broke radio contact. That is FACT.

Even if everyone involved was so flustered and incompetent that the failure to scramble jets to intercept the WTC attackers could be attributed to error and confusion (which military experts familiar with the procedure have testified is flat impossible), in the case of the plane that hit the Pentagon, there were no planes scrambled even after the twin towers had been hit, and a third plane was KNOWN to be headed directly toward Washington, the seat of the United States government! There are squadrons of fighter jets stationed at Andrews Air force base, 12 miles from the Pentagon, on alert at all time for the precise purpose of defending our nation's capitol from attack, yet NOT A SINGLE FIGHTER LEFT THE GROUND until AFTER the Pentagon was hit. That is a FACT agreed to by Bush, Cheney, Gerneral Myers (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs), General Eberhardt (commanding general of NORAD) and many others. Take a deep breath and picture what that really means: four airplanes have been known to be hijacked for an hour and a half, two of them are known to have attacked the World Trade Center's two towers, and another one is known to be headed directly toward the center of the United Sates government ... yet not a single fighter plane EVEN THEN is scrambled (even though standard procedure requires interceptor jets to be dispatched immediately when a plane goes off course and breaks contact, even if it is not known to be a threat). Instead, the civilian and military commanders of our country sit by and watch as that third plane crashes into the nation's military command center ... and THEN order fighter planes up to patrol the skies. Again, regardless of what anyone interprets those facts to mean, they are undisputed facts. That IS what happened.

Again, there are many, many other evidences of deliberate failure to prevent the attacks, and I'm sure we'll cover a lot of them on this thread, but this is the most dramatically obvious one so that's why I started off with it. Now for the "interpretation," it is totally inexplicable to me - and to any of the researchers I know of who have looked into the question directly - how such a massive failure of both standard procedure and commonsense response could have occurred without the assumption of a willful failure on the part of senior officials to prevent the attack. Incompetence cannot explain it: even if ALL of the FAA oficials whose responsibility it was to order the interceptions got so flustered that they didn't do so, the rigid hierarchy of the response system is structured such that the next higher level of command would have been notified of the failure immediately, and would have taken speedy steps to rectify it. The same is true if it were a deliberate failure on the part of the first line (perhaps a plot by terrorists who had infiltrated the FAA): the higher command would have immediately overridden the failure. (Sabra, you know about S.O.P.'s and chain of command, so you can surely verify this.) In fact, the ONLY way that the standard procedure could have failed all the way up the line is by specific orders from the TOP command level ... if in effect the President or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had contacted the fighter commands and said "hold on, don't scramble any jets yet, we are conferring about how to handle the situation." And in fact, Vice President Cheney DID say (unwittingly, perhaps) that it was the President's decision to ultimately scramble the jets, although "unfortunately" too late. What he DIDN'T say is that the only way that would have been the President's decision is if the President (or his top-level military designates) actively took control of a procedure that would otherwise have been automatic.

Finally, assuming some truly incomprhensible chain of coincidental confusions and miscommunications that resulted in this inexplicable breakdown through innocent error (which again, the military experts who have independently addressed the issue agree is really impossible) ... at the very least an innocent commander in chief would certainly demand a full investigation into how such a failure had occurred. Yet not only did Bush fail to DEMAND such an investigation, he strenuously and vocally OPPOSED it, on the grounds that it would "distract our attention" from the necessary actions to retaliate. And when he DID finally bow to enormous pressure for an investigation, he put together a commission of insiders who STILL have not addressed the question and reported to the American people. Now I won't connect those dots, draw your own conclusions ... but those are the FACTS.

And once again, there is nothing in this discussion that is "anti-american propaganda" ... at least from my intention and convictions. It is rather a PRO-American plea to protect this country - AND the rest of the world - from a very dangerous and coercive element seeking to subvert America and all it stands for, and eventually to dominate the entire world in very UN-American fashion, in the NAME of "American patriotism" used cynically to justify other ends entirely.

Sabra, you ask a number of good questions, and I don't have any factual answers for them. Certainly the parallels between this and the events that propelled Hitler to dictatorial power are not exactly identical, as eerily close as they are. In my own personal opinion, extermination of the Jews was never a PRIMARY motive of Hitler's rise to power; it was rather an extraordinarily powerful propaganda tool around which to rally the German nationalist sentiment, which was in the middle of a devastating depression in which many Germans were already predisposed to blaming "rich Jewish bankers and merchants" for their woes. Certainly, fanning the flames of hatred and creating a national "mission" to rid the world of the "filth" that polluted the "rightfully supreme Aryan race" was a strong tool for building and maintaining a false sense of national unity against a common "demonic" enemy. In the current situation there is simply no group that is such a convenient scapegoat ... although there is a lot of propaganda going around to demonize the Islamic people in general. I DO think there is a racial/genocidal element behind the current power-grab, but I don't know enough about it to present a specific theory with any conviction. I DO know that many in the current "gang" of political/intelligence/military/corporate folks pushing this current agenda - including the Bush family going back several generations - are prominent supporters of the "eugenics" movement which predates (and was influential in) the Nazi regime, and which under a banner of pseudo-scientific jargon advocates genetic engineering to produce "superior" people, along with the solution of the population problem by encouraging the "compassionate euthanasia" of society's "useless eaters." But again, I don't have enough information about this to present a well-supported coherent theory.

Love,
Greg

Woody I too have heard the "remote control black box" theory. The reason I haven't mentioned it is that I really want to keep this thread focused as much as possible on clearly verifiable FACTS and sound logical inferences from those facts that anybody can follow and verify, to avoid any possibility that the discussion can be dismissed as unsupported theory or anti-american opinion.

I think this is too important a subject to risk ANY undercutting of it with anything that can be easily dismissed ... so that those who DON'T already believe in any conspiracy or insider complicity theories (which understandably includes MOST folks at this time) can have a responsible source of accurate and clearly presented information on which to draw their own conclusions. I think this is really, really important because there are so many sources of information about this stuff that are filled with conjecture, assertions, anti-American ranting and so on that they are USELESS except for "preaching to the choir." What we really need now as a matter of urgent practical necessity to protect America and the world, is a source of information about these things that is NOT open to criticism as biased propaganda, and is accessible to those without pre-formed convictions who are (rightfully) skeptical about any assertions that elements within the government are acting dishonestly and with motives that do not reflect American values.

If you do have some sound objectively verifiable information about this I would love to hear it and I know others would too. Thanks.

Love,
Greg

Greg, I am trying to understand but am a bit confused.

Now the failiure to scramble any jets might be a well founded FACT but everything else we talk about is simply assumption.

I just don't see the logic, why would they aid an attack on the pentagone or the white house... on THEMSELVES by ignoring procedures. If it were just the WTC, it would be a different story.

Should we assume the attack was left to take its course in order to give themselves justification for many other retiliating actions they would not have otherwise been able to take?

Or was this attack such a startling surprise, in its timing not so much in its self, that they were caught off guard and unprepared? After all how many seconds before the plane went off the radar and the time of impact?

Or perhaps, some of those high commanders are in it with the terrorists but the government would rather diviate our attention than to admit that to the public.

So many scenarios, meanwhile, Saddam's head is wished on a platter by many Iraqis waiting for a chance to get rid of him.

And when the time comes, next round it'll be your turn to get rid of Bush.

Iraqis don't have that choice with their oppressor do they.

*sigh*....Sabra...you surprise me...

I couldn't believe that you said, "Show me . . . where a group of people in the U.S. have been eliminated or will be eradicated on a massive scale. "

How soon we forget...have you never heard of the trail of tears?????...the massacre at Wounded Knee??????.... not to mention many other atrocities the Native American Indian suffered at the hands of first the English, and then the US government???

I realize that I am getting "off center" here to the main topic, but I could not let your remark go by without addressing your comment....*sigh*

*********************************************************

The following is from an eye witness to happenings on the trail of tears...

"I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the west....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm with freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March the 26th 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold and exposure..."

Private John G. Burnett
Captain Abraham McClellan's Company,
2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39

***********************************************

Road conditions, illness, and the distress of winter, particularly in southern Illinois while detachments waited to cross the ice-choked Mississippi, made death a daily occurrence. Mortality rates for the entire removal and its aftermath were substantial, totaling approximately 8,000.

*********************************************************

The Cherokee were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which time they would be forcibly removed. By 1838 only 2,000 had migrated; 16,000 remained on their land. The U.S. government sent in 7,000 troops, who forced the Cherokees into stockades at bayonet point. They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites looted their homes. Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.

Here is a website you might want to check out....another eyewitness account...

http://www.angelfire.com/va2/pathways/tearstr.html

You'll find many sites on the web about the trail of tears, and the trail of tears, is just ONE of the ways in which my native people were subjugated and eliminated...*sigh*...

The following was written by Tecumseh, son of a Shawnee chief....

The way, the only way, to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided.
We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave.
Brothers -- My people wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace; but where the white people are, there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosom of our mother. Where today are the Pequot?
Where today are the Narrangansett, the Mohican, the Pakanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people?
They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun."
-- Tecumseh

*************************************************************

Now that I've said that, we can get back to the business at hand...

Luv,
Rainbow
Daughter of Steve Medacco
Late Elder of the Ottawa Tribe

Sorry Greg, to have gotten off the track here, but it needed to be said...

Luv,
Rainbow

Ps.....Sabra...in my determination to get across to you, that group of people who were subdued and eliminated, I totally overlooked the African American experience here......oops!...*sigh*

Rainbow thank you for that touching and accurate account of one small part of the genocide perpetrated against native Americans by the white European-American settlers. Like the Nazi holocaust it is something that unless we remind ourselves of often and vividly, we risk sweeping it to the back of consciousness as somehow "unreal" and irrelevant, something that happened long ago that could never happen again in our "enlightened" times ... but it ain't so.

In fairness to Sabra, I think that what he was really asking about was present or potential targets of genocide by the current "gang" that is in power. But it is very wise to remember that this gang is not so different from ALL the gangs throughout history ... and there have been many, many of them ... who have felt justified in treating their fellow human beings as chattels, slaves or "objects" worthy of no human regard whatsoever ... in order to have their own way. Don't like the Jews? Get rid of them! Indians occupying territory that WE want? Kill the savages! Whether racial, religious, territorial or whatever, brutality and extermination of opponents has always been the concommitant of governments, leaders and cultures who believe that power and conquest are acceptable ways of achieving their ends.

It is not merely this particular "gang" that we need to put a stop to - although they are the most immediately threatening to us at this particular time and place - but to the whole concept that aggression, conquest, domination and control are acceptable modes of human conduct. They are NOT ... and unless the human community can be brought to a consensus that we will not tolerate or support such values and behavior EVER, from ANYONE, humanity doesn't have much of a future to look forward to, IMHO.

Love,
Greg

Hi Rachel I'll try to answer your confusions as best I can.

In reply to:

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I just don't see the logic, why would they aid an attack on the pentagone or the white house on THEMSELVES by ignoring procedures. If it were just the WTC, it would be a different story.

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That does seem bizarre, doesn't it? Unless they knew in advance that the damage to the Pentagon would be to an unoccupied wing (which it was), and therefore no real danger to themselves. Beyond such a conjecture, I don't have an answer to your question ... but it doesn't nullify the question "if they thought they were in danger, why in the world wouldn't they scramble jets to protect themselves, when those jets were standing by a few miles away, on the alert for EXACTLY THAT PURPOSE?" Doesn't make much sense, does it?

In reply to:

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Should we assume the attack was left to take its course in order to give themselves justification for many other retiliating actions they would not have otherwise been able to take?

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That's the only assumption that makes any sense to me ... and that general tactic of "create a crisis in order to justify retaliation and other actions that would not otherwise be acceptable," has been used MANY times in history, it's not a new idea. If anybody else has any other reasonable conjectures that would explain this, I'd love to hear them.

In reply to:

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Or was this attack such a startling surprise, in its timing not so much in its self, that they were caught off guard and unprepared? After all how many seconds before the plane went off the radar and the time of impact?

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The planes NEVER went off radar, their positions were known and tracked continuously. The time between the first awareness that there was a potential threat and the first impact with the first WTC tower was about 25 minutes. The time from that OBSERVED attack and the second attack on the South tower was another 18 minutes. The time between the known hijacking of flight 77 at 8:46AM (just about the time that the first plane hit the WTC) and its impact with the Pentagon at 9:40AM was almost a full hour, during which time the plane's whereabouts and its direct flight path toward Washington, D.C. were known and tracked on radar at all times.

In reply to:

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So many scenarios, meanwhile, Saddam's head is wished on a platter by many Iraqis waiting for a chance to get rid of him.

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Yes, the Saddam issue is a terrible one, and something must certainly be done about him. However, if the events here described show that the gang in power is deliberately lying and manipulating events for their own purposes - which I believe they do - then I don't think these are the people we want to launch an immediate attack against Iraq without a lot more questions being asked and answered first!

Love,
Greg

Hi Rainbow,

First, let me say you are absolutely right!!! So is Terri when she also mentioned the Native Americans above. No disagreement from me.

It wasn't an oversight on my part nor did I forget. When I posted the above, one message was at 2:30am and the next one was only after a couple of hours of sleep right before 8:00am and I was running late for work.

Because of the lack of time, space and exhaustion, what I did was only focus on Greg's parallels ("The parallels are ominous...") of only two elements that he made:

Hitler's power grab and the rise of the Nazi's (as Greg describes above).

Compared to what is happening in the United States today.

In reply to:

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Well, a dire crisis that creates widespread fear and panic being used as an excuse to quickly grab war powers and push through legislation expanding executive power and secrecy and bypassing civil rights (that would not have had a snowball's chance in hell of passing BEFORE 9/11) is way too close a parallel to Hitler's power grab in 1933 to ignore.

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I was attempting to show that in my view Greg's comparison is flawed. Greg pointed out two governments from two different time periods: Nazi Germany's government in the 1930's and the United States government of the present.

When one is speaking or referring to the ideologies of the Nazi's, one cannot help but think of the atrocities they committed which was primarily aimed at seeking out and eliminating the Jewish population. Not putting them in reservations. Not putting them into prisons. Not kicking them out of the country, but rather a complete and total systematic annihilation till they were extinct.

Of course I have heard of Wounded Knee. There were many, many Native American Indians and tribes that suffered under the hands of the U.S. government. I don't even like the phrase " Indian reservation" because to me it is a constant reminder of how the American Indians were treated. And who can forget what the African Americans have experienced in this country.

My attempt was not at all to overshadow other atrocities or to say that the holocaust was the greatest atrocity of all time. What about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia, the Rwandan Massacres . . .

Twentieth Century Atlas - Top Ranked Atrocities

Greg is right in thinking when he said:

"In fairness to Sabra, I think that what he was really asking about was present or potential targets of genocide by the current "gang" that is in power."

That is what I am asking, but on the same scale and brutality of the Nazi's, only because a parallel is being made between them and our current government.

Sabra

Hello Knowflakes,

Greg, I'm trying to remember what publication I read about the anit-hijacking equipment. I'm thinking Popular Mechanics or an article in a money section of a newspaper a few years back. I hadn't though about it until I read the article by the engineer several months back ... then I remembered reading about that technology years before 9/11. It is real. The technology was written about years ago, so if it isn't currently being used, then we need to ask ourselves... why?

Woody

Hi Everyone

I did a lot of thinking regarding the questions that Sabra posed here. Especially when he asked was there a hidden agenda? And why destroy the democracy we have now?

In your reply to Rainbow, Greg one thing you said is along the lines I was thinking about: " Whether racial, religious, territorial or whatever, brutality and extermination of opponents has always been the concommitant of governments, leaders and cultures who believe that power and conquest are acceptable ways of achieving their ends. "

I was thinking of what possible reason our government would have of just ignoring the FBI and CIA warnings regarding a possible attack and not allowing military planes to deal with those four hi-jacked airliners that made sudden changes in their flight plans. There is one possible hidden agenda that came to my mind. I don't think genocide applies here at all. But maybe religion does?? In considering that Pres. Bush describes his agenda as "faith based initiative", in considering his push for government monies to be channeled into churches for charitable acts in helping the homeless and in drug rehibilitation, he is, according to the ACLU, in violation of the Constitutional amendment concerning the separation of church and state. Jill Lawrance talks about this funding of churches and how Bush's agenda walks the church-state line in her article for USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-01-29-bush-religion_x.htm) Also it has been disturbing to churches because most churches don't have the resources to take on that load from social services. Another thing that is of concern is how Bush sees this war with Iraq. The following is an editorial from the Washington Post by E.J. Dionne :

And, yes, Bush gives a lot of people the willies when he suggests he feels a kind of religious calling to this historic moment and to the challenges of terrorism. Here's where he needs to pay attention to foreign critics such as Francis. Of course, it's common for Christians to speak of a calling. But it doesn't help Bush, or our country, for the world to think--even unfairly--that an American president about to wage war is inspired not only by his own utter certainty, but also God's. The very nature of this conflict, steeped as it is in religious feeling, requires that this president be even more careful than his predecessors when he invokes the Almighty. .....Written by E.J. Dionne Washington Post Reporter

And yet another one from National Council of Churches:

Blaming the victim, the NCC (National Council of Churches) declared that the president's policies "rhetorically divide nations and peoples into camps of 'good and evil,'" and that his public statements have been guilty of "demonizing adversaries or enemies." It suggests that the Bush administration itself, may be causing much of the animus that breeds violent attacks on this country.

Attempts by the Bush administration "to organize international support for a new military action against Iraq, with the objective of overthrowing its current government, raise particular alarm," said the NCC

http://www.ird-renew.org/News/News.cfm?ID=506&c=4

There is nothing wrong with a President being religious but it all kind of reminded me of a book I read some years back by Margaret Atwood titled The Handmaids Tale . It is a fictional account of what might happen if the United States was run by a Christian fundalmentalist regime. There is an excellent essay regarding this book on the internet by Nat Trief of the U. of Ariz. (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jmccrack/103/essay2final/section18/TriefTICessayfinalsec0181.htm) In her book Margaret Atwood terms it a monotheocratic regime. In his essay one of the things Trief states concerning the book is:

The monotheocracy depicted by Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, although very similar to that of Iran, is controlled by a different religion. By basing the Republic of Gilead on the tenets of Christian Puritanism as opposed to Islam, the novel is a depiction of a similar monotheocratic regime taking root within the United States. Iran may seem foreign and irrelevant to the typical American citizen, but The Handmaid's Tale is a warning that religious fanatics would ultimately create a very similar society in the United States if they ever were to take control of our government. The only way that we, as United States citizens, can be safe from the terror invoked by a fanatical religious monotheocracy is to do whatever we can to stop religious fanatics from taking over control of our society. We must fight to maintain the separation of church and state, or our society will become buried beneath an oppressive monotheocracy.

It is imperative that we take Atwood's warning seriously so that we can keep the liberties woman have fought so long and hard for from being tossed away into a pool of dismal oblivion. It is essential that we don't let fanatical religious leaders force everyone to think the same way they do, regardless of what religion such fanatics represent. Last and fore mostly, we cannot forget the rights granted to us by our founding fathers to say anything we want, and be critical of whomever we please. The moment we stop being critical of ourselves and those who govern us we will have lost the ability to stop Gilead from becoming reality. If it should ever happen that the United States is lead away from these core democratic values, we may no longer have the strength to lift the burden of theological oppression off of our shoulders. If we fail to do so, the United States could very well become as oppressed and intellectually stagnant as the monotheocracies invoked by both the fictional Republic of Gilead and in the reality that is Iran.

Monotheocracy is a term coined by Atwood in her interview on page 316 of The Handmaid's Tale, because there is no definition of monotheology in any conventional dictionary. Monotheocracy is categorized by the political domination of a society by members of a particular theology or religion. The religious leaders, such as the Ayatollah, are also the political leaders, and thus there decisions are generally held to be the product of divine guidance.

Consider Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews and Gypsys as the prototype of totalitarianism and Spain's persecution of non-Catholics during the inquisition as a prototypical theocracy.

Could this happen in the United States? Could we possibly ever elect a Christian fundamentalist extremist much like the Husseins and Khomeini in the Middle East? All religions have their fundamentalist factions. How much do we know about Bush's religious beliefs? I am reminded of what Aldous Huxley said in his book, The Perennial Philosophy regarding what can happen when someone who wants control and power mixes that with religion. We have seen it all through history. And it HAS happened before in the United States in Salem, Massachusetts. Many Christian missionaries considered Native Americans "heathens incapable of conversion" and participated in the genocide of those Native American peoples. This is just my hypothesis here but, what if the Bush administration allowed the terrorist attack in order to wage a holy war of their own? It seems they are depicting this in black and white terms, good against evil and that God is on our side. A divine call. I am reminded of what Gandhi said about that: " The only thing wrong with Christianity is the Christians."

I have to say here that I am a Christian myself so I am not suggesting this to slam religion or any specific religion. I would, for that reason, hate to have this be true. But I think it is possible.

Love, Connie

P.S. I have no idea why those numbers are in my post and why some site addresses posted and others didn't

Hi Rainbow

Just wanted to let you know that my grandma used to talk to me about the Cherokee Trail of Tears when I was little. She told me that her mom, my great grandma, was on the Trail of Tears with her parents. My great grandma was very young at the time and some of her relatives died along the way from sickness and the cold.

But the Cherokee Nation survived and overcame the Trail of Tears to establish their own college and their own alphabet. To this day they are the great Cherokee Nation.

I loved the picture

This has nothing to do with anything, but I just noticed that in the short time I have been here I am already listed as a member with 131 posts. I have a big mouth

Love, Connie

Wow, Connie, really interesting thoughts ... I'll have to ponder these and respond in the morning, too close to bedtime now!

Sabra, thanks for clarifying, I actually didn't understand what point you were trying to make about the genocide. Actually, I was not trying to draw a parallel between the Nazi government and our government, either before or after their respective "power-grabs." That parallel certainly WOULD be flawed by many, many things (including the focus on racial genocide, but in many other ways as well).

Rather, the parallel I was drawing was between the Nazi's method of grabbing power by means of using a fearful and threatening external crisis (the burning of the Reichstag) and then "solving" the crisis by invoking emergency war powers, suspending civil liberties and vastly expanding military action and police powers, and the current administration's use of the WTC attacks to grab power by offering as "solutions" to the terrorist threat the invocation of emergency war powers, suspending civil liberties and vastly expanding military action and police powers. THAT parallel, I believe, is not flawed but is directly comparable!

Love,
Greg

Greg -

Please remove me as a member of this website - and everything associated with membership - as soon as possible. I do not wish to be associated in any way with "Conscious Evolution".

Joyce

Hi Joyce,

This makes me very sad, but of course I'll honor your wishes.

One thought I'd like to leave you with to consider: it is wholly admirable to hold strong opinions ... it shows that you CARE. But if your beliefs preclude the possibility of even looking at alternatives, presented calmly and in goodwill, it suggests that you may not be as sure of those beliefs as you would like to be ... else why would you recoil from even being in the presence of ideas that might challenge them? Just a thought to ponder.

I'm removing your membership as requested. I will really miss your presence here, and I know a lot of other folks will, too. If you ever change your mind, please feel free to contact me to reinstate your membership, or to rejoin under another name. Lots of affection and good wishes for you and your family.

Love,
Greg

Greg,

I'm really sorry about Joyce's decision to leave Conscious Evolution. I hope she does change her mind about that.

My parish priest once told me that there are some people who can't handle questioning things because it makes them feel insecure. He said that some people need to have things neatly categorized and ordered in their minds for that reason. They need the comfort of a black and white order in their lives because the gray areas of life makes them feel insecure. He was not only referring to religion and the questioning process involved in faith growth, but he was referring to life in general.

Again, I hope Joy reconsiders this and comes back and I'm sorry it happened.

Love, Connie

Greg,
I salute your bravery in even posting this line of thought in this time we are now in. And I've always been impressed with how hard you try to only examine the facts. Or at least distinguish fact from feelings.

What really truly amazes and puzzles me about this is how divided our country is over these issues.

I know how I feel and have always felt about the whole Bush family. I have a physical stomach reaction when I see GW on tv. I wish I didn't but I do...that's a fact.

But I am also very aware that alot of my friends do not see him the way I do at all!! And these same friends and I are alike on so many other issues.

I know they sincerely believe he is doing what is best for our country when my heart and gut screams otherwise! The legislation that has been introduced during this term just screams "unconstitutional" to me and I resent to no end the big brother and Orwellian mentality that they display.

But why is that?? Why do people see things so differently?
Why is it that people don't want to examine all sides and possibilites before they take a stand? How can people watch the same news shows and read the same newspapers and come away with such different points of view??

I want to be convinced that I am wrong. I really do. I hate how I feel about this administration. I wish I could be supportive but I see nothing that convinces me I'm wrong...indeed the more I watch and read and research the more convinced I am that they are looking out for an entirely different agenda than the welfare of the American people.

There is a quote I read somewhere and I think it was attributed to Jefferson or maybe it was Lincoln but it says basically that all goverment is hostile to those governed.
I think most of us don't want to accept that. I know I don't. But I also know that the older I get the sadder I get about the state of the goverened all over this planet.

I don't have the answers...but I think there's something noble about trying to change what is obviously not working.
But before we can change we have to learn. And this is a hard time to be learning in.
But I also remind myself that I "volunteered" for this life assignment and that there are no victims...only volunteers.

And if we can exchange ideas and information in a loving supportive enviroment...well that is indeed a noble service to provide.

So thank you, for many things. But mostly for this wonderful opportunity to learn.

Joyce,
I too will miss you. We differ on many things but I too love your spirit and intelligence and you bring another side to examine. I love to look at all sides of everything so your perspective will be missed.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your
religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the auth