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Bush High Crime * Left Gatekeepers * 911 Truth


08 May 2005

When I despair, I remember that all through history
the way of truth and love have always won.
There have been tyrants, and murderers,
and for a time they can seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall.
Think of it...always.


--Mahatma Gandhi

1) Proof Bush Fixed The Facts
- - Eighty-eight members of Congress Challenge Bush Secret War
- - Palast: "Impeachment Time: ‘"Facts Were Fixed.'"
2) Media ‘Gatekeepers of the So-Called Left
- - C-Span2 Breakthrough for 9/11 Truth

Editor's Notes:

This issue begins with the good news that truth has been uncovered regarding a policy for a secret war on Iraq, which was developed purportely between the US and UK secret governments. The bad news is in item 2 - the control of the media and what that says regarding truth-exposing impotency. This is not only true with progressive media outlets, but according to the article in item 2, Michael Novick of the Anti-Racist Action network claims that 501(c)3 - NGO - the not-for-profit corporate model ‘has been the death of popular movements and authentic resistance.‘ Yet it isn't time to give up ~ with the proof of high crimes and treason by the Bush administration that was recently uncovered, and the re-showing of David Ray Griffin's presentation via C-span.

It's better to light one candle
than to curse the darkness"

-- Emily Dickinson



1) Proof Bush Fixed The Facts

- - Eighty-eight members of Congress Challenge Bush Secret War
- - Palast: "Impeachment Time: ‘"Facts Were Fixed.'"

- - Proof Bush Fixed The Facts
By Ray McGovern
TomPaine.com
Wednesday 04 May 2005

"Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

[EXCERPT]

Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would see those words in black and white - and beneath a SECRET stamp, no less. For three years now, we in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been saying that the CIA and its British counterpart, MI-6, were ordered by their countries' leaders to "fix facts" to "justify" an unprovoked war on Iraq. More often than not, we have been greeted with stares of incredulity.

It has been a hard learning - that folks tend to believe what they want to believe. As long as our evidence, however abundant and persuasive, remained circumstantial, it could not compel belief. It simply is much easier on the psyche to assent to the White House spin machine blaming the Iraq fiasco on bad intelligence than to entertain the notion that we were sold a bill of goods.

Well, you can forget circumstantial. Thanks to an unauthorized disclosure by a courageous whistleblower, the evidence now leaps from official documents - this time authentic, not forged.

Whether prompted by the open appeal of the international Truth-Telling Coalition or not, some brave soul has made the most explosive "patriotic leak" of the war by giving London's Sunday Times the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on July 23, 2002, on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.

Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document, which immortalizes a discussion that is chillingly amoral. Apparently no one felt free to ask the obvious questions. Or, worse still, the obvious questions did not occur.


..In its formal appeal of Sept. 9, 2004 to current U.S. government officials, the Truth-Telling Coalition said this:

We know how misplaced loyalty to bosses, agencies, and careers can obscure the higher allegiance all government officials owe the Constitution, the sovereign public, and the young men and women put in harm's way. We urge you to act on those higher loyalties ... Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now.

If persons with access to wrongly concealed facts and analyses bring them to light, the chances become less that a president could launch another unprovoked war - against, say, Iran.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/proof_bush_fixed_the_facts.php
or
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050505K.shtml

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray McGovern served 27 years as a CIA analyst and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour.

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- - Eighty-eight members of Congress Challenge Bush Secret War

"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole
during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial
and a runaway bride."

-- Rep. John Conyers

Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan

SECRET PLANS
Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan
RAW STORY

Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations. "Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."

"The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the war."

The members say they are seeking an inquiry. "This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occurring, I am circulating the following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign on to it."

The letter follows. ###

May 5, 2005 The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.

The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:

* Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

* British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

* A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

* A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:

1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states? We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.

Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

For the posted article and list of
Members who have already signed letter:

See: http://www.rawstory.com/aexternal/conyers_iraq_letter_502

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- - Palast: "Impeachment Time: ‘"Facts Were Fixed.'"

IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED."
Special to BuzzFlash
May 5, 2005
By Greg Palast


Here it is. The smoking gun. The memo that has "IMPEACH HIM" written all over it.

The top-level government memo marked "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL," dated eight months before Bush sent us into Iraq, following a closed meeting with the President, reads, "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Read that again: "The intelligence and facts were being fixed...."

For years, after each damning report on BBC TV, viewers inevitably ask me, "Isn't this grounds for impeachment?" -- vote rigging, a blind eye to terror and the bin Ladens before 9-11, and so on. Evil, stupidity and self-dealing are shameful but not impeachable. What's needed is a "high crime or misdemeanor."

And if this ain't it, nothing is.

Article truncated, for complete article, see:
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=426&row=0



2) Media ‘Gatekeepers of the So-Called Left

- - C-Span2 Breakthrough for 9/11 Truth


- - The Gatekeepers of the So-Called Left
From: Scoop Outgoing News
UQ Wire: The Gatekeepers of the So-Called Left

Posting to Headlines Wire of Scoop
Opinion: www.UnansweredQuestions.org
Date: Wednesday, 4 May 2005

Regulated Resistance: Pt. 2 -
The Gatekeepers of the So-Called Left
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
By Charles Shaw

[EXCERPTS]

Last February United for Peace and Justice, the largest representative coalition within the American "anti-war movement", emerged from their second annual Assembly with a 2005 "action plan" that effectively caged the "anti-war" debate exclusively within the Iraq conflict to achieve partisan ends on behalf of the pro-war Democratic Party and their Neoliberal corporate benefactors. Their "action plan" refused to address any of the core issues of US Foreign and Defense policy, which are the root causes of a pervading culture of war and militarism that has taken over the nation in the years since WWII.


These decisions are part of a larger pattern of "regulated resistance", a system by which dissent is carefully managed and constrained by self, overt, or covert censorship; denial-based-psychology; fear of personal or professional criticism and reprisal; and pressure from powers above including elected officials and those establishment foundations which flood millions into the not-for-profit activist sector.

This establishment money, and the access it grants, has caused many ostensible resistance leaders to suddenly and dramatically abandon long-held ideological positions and shift their behavior towards doing what can clearly be seen as the bidding of those in power whose views and values are in direct contravention to the established mores of peace and justice movements throughout history.

These "resistance leaders" of the "Left" act as "Gatekeepers"—influential "progressive" figures who use their resources and visibility to regulate the debate, tactics, and rhetoric of the "anti-war" and other "progressive" movements.

The Gatekeepers of the So-Called "Left"

"The press is the hired agent of a moneyed system, set up for no other reason than to tell us lies where their interests are concerned." — Henry Adams

In his shocking investigative report "The Left Gatekeepers", journalist Bob Feldman researched purportedly "Left" activist and media organizations that receive substantial funding from large establishment foundations with known ties to the CIA, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and even the much-maligned Carlyle Group, the arms dealing "investment fund" featured in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, of which GHW Bush, the Saudi royal family, and, at one time, the Bin Laden family, are all equity partners.

The Foundation structure is used by these organizations to funnel corporate and personal wealth into the policy-making process. Foundations are tax-free, and contributions to foundations are deductible from federal corporate and individual income taxes. The Foundations themselves are not subject to federal income taxation, and they control hundreds of billions of dollars of money that would normally go to pay these necessary taxes.

Feldman asks, "Are the interests of the people being served by 'dissidents' who are being subsidized by the agencies of the ruling class whom they should be exposing? What does this say about the motivations behind the Left establishment's ideological warfare against conspiracy researchers, and their adoption of an increasingly watered-down analytical view which fails to look closely at the inner power structures and conspiracies of the ruling elite?" ..

What outrages many of those within the activist community who are aware of these funding sources is that these so-called "dissidents" would consent to take money from these foundations given the long and voluminous history they have as part of the war-making establishment.

In his book Trading with the Enemy, Charles Hingham documents how both the Rockefeller and Ford fortunes were enhanced in part through collaboration with Nazi Germany, the Rockefellers by selling the Nazis oil through the Standard Oil Company, and the Fords by selling the Nazis tanks through subsidiary corporations (note: the only industrial infrastructure spared in the Allied bombing of Germany was the Ford Motors plant near Cologne). Both Standard Oil (eventually Amoco) and the Ford Motor Co. made huge profits from Defense contracts following WWII. Since 1950 a Rockefeller has held a prominent leadership position in the Council on Foreign Relations, and David Rockefeller was cofounder of the Trilateral Commission. Both organizations helped craft the "Carter Doctrine" of the late 1970s which stated that the US would heretofore intervene militarily to protect its oil supply from the Middle East.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has been the historical driving force behind such bedrock institutions of corporate globalization as the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Word Trade Organization, and NATO, and which Esquire magazine referred to in 1962 as "that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation." In 1950, the Chicago Tribune published a story on the CFR in which they stated, "[the members] have used the prestige that their wealth, their social position, and their education have given them to lead their country towards bankruptcy and military debacle. They should look at their hands. There is blood on them—the dried blood of the last war and the fresh blood of the present one."

The Failed Obligations and Inexcusable Denials of the "Left" Media

To offer a clear portrait of how "regulated resistance" works within the "Left" or "progressive" media, consider their steadfast refusal to report on or organize around two of the most important incidents in modern American history as pertains to our present situation—possible US government involvement in 9/11, and the relationship between the Bush family and the Nazi regime in Germany.

Sins of Omission and Distortion9/11, and the Rubber Stamp

As mentioned throughout this article, the first and perhaps greatest failure of the "anti-war movement" is the shameful irresponsibility the "Left" has shown by their refusal to challenge the "official" story behind 9/11.

Bob Feldman writes

Not surprisingly, the rank and file didn't buy into the hype—nor were many convinced by the gatekeepers' offhand, passionless calls for an official investigation. Interest in alternative 9/11 reporting continued to grow, and by the time that members of 9/11 victim's families began publicly demanding an end to the government cover-up and even mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times were admitting that the lack of an independent investigatory commission was "extraordinary," the Left media gatekeepers backed down and adopted a new tactic of silent stonewalling and tacit support for the official story.

..The 9/11 Truth movement got a fledgling chance to make its case to the "Left" on May 26th, 2004, when, Amy Goodman, host of the flagship Progressive news source Democracy NOW!, agreed to host prominent theologian David Ray Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Her decision followed a long and relentless "Waking Amy" campaign organized by Emanuel Sferios of the 9/11 Visibility Project.

However, at the last minute, Goodman abruptly and without explanation changed the format of the show from an interview to a "debate,"and brought in long-time "anti-conspiracist" Chip Berlet. Berlet is not an expert on 9/11 research, and his group, Political Research Associates, is an alleged "Left" organization that is funded in part by the Ford Foundation. (It is interesting to note that "Chip" Berlet's full name is John Foster Berlet. He was named after John Foster Dulles who, with his brother Allen, designed the CIA for Harry Truman in 1947, and played a prominent role in smuggling Nazis into America to help build the post-WWII American "Defense" and Intelligence apparatus).

Despite their being a virtual laundry list of inconsistencies to the "official" story, and documented proof of government cover-up activity, the final product, "The New Pearl Harbor" A Debate On A New Book That Alleges The Bush Administration Was Behind The 9/11 Attacks," focused almost exclusively on a handful of weak speculations made by French researcher Thierry Meyssan, not Griffin, about aspects of the Pentagon strike. This well-worn tactic known as the "straw man argument" is used by detractors to attack and undermine the weakest part of an alternative theory in order to dismiss it and alienate the public from the larger issue..

Griffin did end up writing a lengthy response to Berlet's misleading critique, but the damage had already been done. Goodman never really inquired beyond the "straw man" arguments Berlet kept pounding, and no other "Left" media outlet with the audience of Democracy NOW! has touched the story since. [article was written before C-span coverage of David Ray Griffin's lecture in Madison, Wisconsin]

It is important to note that Democracy NOW! was awarded a $75,000 Ford Foundation grant in 2002 "to continue incorporating the aftermath of the September 11th attack into future broadcasts," and received a further $150,000 from Ford in 2004.

Emanuel Sferios says the Ford Foundation does not have to explicitly tell Democracy NOW! how they want 9/11 to be covered. He explains that "Democracy NOW! will simply self-censor, because they want future money from the Ford Foundation. It's also important to note that Amy Goodman coined a new, pejorative phrase to dismiss the 9/11 Truth Movement. She is the first in history, as far as I know, to refer to us as a "conspiracy theory movement."

The most glaring irony in all of this is that it was Goodman herself who uttered these words

"I think the media has reached an all-time low in this country. And that is a terrible violation of what our profession is supposed to do. We are supposed to hold those in power accountable. We're not supposed to cozy up to those in power, not supposed get the perks of the powerful. We are supposed to be there to, if not keep the politicians honest, show what's going on. And it is very serious now because we're talking about wartime... And when the media acts as a conveyer belt for the lies of the administration, we not only are violating our responsibility, but those lies take lives."

A Story That Would Outrage Anyone—But No One Knows About

The "Left" has also consistently refused, on any level, to report or act on the established connection between the Bush Family and the Nazi Party during the 1930's, 40's, and early 50's.

John Buchanan, the charismatic, relentless independent journalist from Miami wrote about his inability to get any mainstream media source to pick up his New Hampshire Gazette story, "Bush—Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951" in his 2004 book, Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media, and the Religious Right.

Even though Buchanan's reporting was based on facts that came directly from declassified official documents currently in the National Archives, not one single mainstream news source agreed to even look at the government documents, which chronicled the long history of collaboration between Bush's grandfathers Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker.

Prescott Bush's employer A. Averell Harriman of Brown Brothers Harriman, and Nazi industrialist and financier Fritz Thyssen. Between 1942 and 1951, under the "Trading with the Enemy Act," the US Government seized 33 Bush-Harriman-Nazi businesses and client assets. But instead of facing a firing squad for treason during war time, Prescott Bush pocketed $1.5 Million from the liquidation of the first and largest of the 33 businesses, the Union Banking Corporation, principle investor in the Silesian-American Corporation which used slave-labor from the Auschwitz concentration camp for mining in Poland. None of the principles in the deal were ever brought to justice.

This story should have resurfaced every time one of the Bush men ran for or was appointed to public office. Instead, it was spun relentlessly, and eventually buried. Only The Guardian of London eventually picked up on this story in one subsequent article nearly a year later titled, "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power".

CONCLUSION: The Death of Authentic Resistance

Michael Novick of the Anti-Racist Action network has been around a long time, and has a list of bona fides pages long. He has seen many an organization come and go, and he believes that the 501(c)3/NGO/not-for-profit corporate model has been the death of popular movements and authentic resistance.

=================================================================
Charles Shaw is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Newtopia,
and has been deeply involved in the anti-war movement since the
bombing of Afghanistan. Newtopia Magazine is a member group of
United for Peace and Justice.
=================================================================

This Story is at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0505/S00043.htm

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- - C-Span2 Breakthrough for 9/11 Truth

Noted Theologian, David Ray Griffin
Reveals Major 9/11 Cover-up on C-SPAN

This is a phenomenal development !

The truth about 911, and how we know it was planned and perpetrated by the forces within our own government, has taken a GIANT leap forward with this national exposure, on C-SPAN by conservative theologian, David Ray Griffin.

Every Machiavellian act this government has taken since that infamous day is based on a claimed (by them) "attack by Arab terrorists" against our nation.

Only that claim turns out to be the MOTHER OF ALL LIES, and David tells you very clearly how we know that to be the case. If you don't have video capability do as I did at first, listen to the audio here, on the below link.

True, we still don't know exactly HOW and by whom specifically 911 was pulled of; only that it was OUR PEOPLE who pulled it off. That's all we need to know to set a genuine investigation off, with testimony under oath, where people involved will have to reveal the specific roles they played, and under who's orders.

Listen or watch; it's only an hour and twenty minutes. You'll be relieved to know what we all now know. We are safe from everyone BUT those who hijacked our government five and a half years ago. A government we'll have to take back and make into a democracy where people, not corporations, run our government.

Ken Reiner
Re-run of Griffin 9/11 Talk on C-Span Sat 5/7
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=34027

David Ray Griffin Reveals Major 9/11 Cover-up on C-SPAN
http://www.wanttoknow.info/050504davidraygriffin

Links and article posted from
http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=2091&blz=2

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The David Ray Griffin C-Span talk
is available HERE on DVD!


Following are mainstream news coverage:

Speaker Says Bush Knew Of Sept. 11 Plans
and
Theologian calls for response to 9/11

Also, recommended, is another presentation by David Ray Griffin,
speaking in Santa Rosa, California, about his newest book,
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions.


These are must see films, which include visuals of actual events illustrating what
Dr. Griffin is talking about, like free-falling (controlled-demolition) Towers.
And, what was that about a third building collapsing, inexplicably..
or an airplane disappearing into the Pentagon via undersized hole?


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