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\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/) the UP! //:-) 140 dec 17 2002 la - la - la - lap-toppling da system! (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/ TURN ON YOUR COMPUTER // TUNE IN TO THE FREE SPIRIT OF THE INTERNET // TAKE OVER! (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/ TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (fraser clark) (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/ TJ PHRASER & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD @ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP * * Ideas Per Paragraph IF YOU CANNOT VIEW THIS PROPERLY, TELL US AND WE’LL PUT YOU ON A SPECIAL UNFORMATTED LIST. TO REPLY TO FRASER OR THE UP!, OR TO UNSUBSCRIBE, EMAIL fraser@parallel-youniversity.com TO SUBSCRIBE, WRITE “I wanna get UP!” TO people@parallel-youniversity.com (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/ contents:
THE
UP! - AN OASIS OF HUMANITY IN A DESERT OF AUTOMATA!! p.2'IT'S TIME TO TAKE RISKS!' DANIEL ELLSBERG APPEALS TO THOSE IN THE KNOW TO SHOP THE GOVERNMENT! The Art of War? r u listening, george? THE VENEZUELAN “STRIKE” IS AN EMPLOYERS’ LOCKOUT Open Letter to Bush on Venezuela from Congressmen p.11 WHAT LIES ARE BEING PLANNED FOR THIS IRAQ WAR? INFORMATION WARFARE IN POST CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P
The UP! (or UP!grademag) is a global edutainment round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,756]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 30,000+ direct recipients. Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a conservatively estimated total weekly ‘readership’ of 275,000+U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P * * * * * * WEEK OF DEC 18-24 * * * * * *
looking for the perfect xmas/new year present for the friend who has everything except THE FACTS?!HOW CAN WE USE THE PAST? We’re still reeling from two eclipses, and this week we have both a full moon and Winter Solstice. These are high energy and complicated times. There is an intense releasing of energy, a letting go of the past. And at the same time, we bring a long-ago past into new manifestation. With full moon, we weave the old into the new to build a future, perhaps under harsh and difficult conditions. For details, see Maya’s Daily Success Guide at www.daykeeperjournal.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * why not subscribe your special friends to the UP!? “Nothing else I have time to read gives me so much stimulation as the UP! and nowhere else in the world do i feel so connected with my own understanding of our times.” Paul Hithersay. “The UP! fits this wonderful spontaneous organic community of all kinds of 'different' dissident cultural creatives.” UP! //YOU CHRISTMAS SHOPPING ADVICE: DON’T GET STUFFED WITH A DVD TURKEY!! WAIT A FEW MORE MONTHS TILL THE 3-WAY FORMAT BATTLE BETWEEN Panasonic’s DVD-RAM, Pioneer’s DVD-R, and Philips’ DVD-RW has been decided. The catch is that while each DVD system can play pre-recorded discs, DVDs recorded at home may not play on other machines. It’s like a re-run of the old VHS/ Betamax video war of the 1980s which VHS finally won. UP! //YOU FEEDBACK AN OASIS OF HUMANITY INA DESERT OF AUTOMATA!! Great surprise in the inbox' well pleased to see //YOU back!! And was it worth waiting for oh yes!! An oasis of humanity ina desert of automatons..... as welcome at least. Nothing else i have time to read gives me so much stimulation and nowhere else in the world do i feel so connected with my own understanding of our times..... This little e-mag of yours really is like a beacon shining in the fog of collective apathy and torpor. If more of the people sleeping in their plastic shadows came in contact with the light of UP! it might even help them seemore clearly how shallow marshmallow the mass media is, how dishonest and manipulated their own lives are, how fettered we are in the land of the free (i include the uk as the 51st state now anyway:) and all these people might start to divide between those who can't stand the light and so scuttle back indignantly into the shadows ... where they’re seduced and comforted by the moron milk of mainstream delusion, while those who are prepared to be out there and possibly seared and scorched by the light, who are prepared to feel small and insignificant, to know their own complicity in this shite we are all in, to feel responsible and part of it yet separate and alone..... to know the threshold of insanity within and without, to know the reality of humanity and shout, LOOK OUT..... DANGER COMING FROM BEHIND THAT BUSH! .... but sleeping, they were unaware, or chose to close their hearts and ears, to hide behind the smooth and soothing simple answers.... some of which may in fact be true.... like (for example)there's nothing we can ' DO ' about it. You 'do' something brilliant and getting more brilliant as it gains momentum from fantastically heartening contributions by quality hearts and lovers. //YOU know, and all can dig, that this myth presides over all the doings of man since time began, that there is such a thing as destiny and each must ride the tides which wash our watch upon this earth, and surrender to the winds of fate which shape our time in history. remember that this moment is the mystery.... the path unknown yet somehow familiar.... The UP! fits this wonderful spontaneous organic community of all kinds of 'different' dissident cultural creatives. Yes, it goes on across all times and civilisations, but never have birds of a feather flocked together worldwide like this..... there are worldwide terrorists, firmly asleep in their nightmare of corporate western enemies on whom they each depend as men of violence to justify their own violence violently. perhaps the destiny of all the principal participants, the Bushes and the Bin Ladens, the princes and the courtiers in the pageant of history-mystery before us is mixed up with our own... maybe we are not cocooned in smug consumer safety after all and sleep walking have stumbled into consciousness.... afraid of what we see... maybe.... it is human nature causing the current crisis.... maybe Bush really is a pin-striped fascist dictator, perhaps America isreally not the land of the free (witness the treatment of ravers for foox sake!) and so on and so forth things which discomfort people... and why? why, the ultimate question and one which you should not ask unless you are prepared for answers you might not like or be satisfied with! What have we, in all the past generations and now, who stood up and said no, got in common? Paul Hithersay / UP! "Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." Buddha GURDJIEFF ON WAR P D Ouspensky: Can War be stopped? G I Gurdjieff: Yes, it can. But the whole thing is: how? It is necessary to know a great deal in order to understand that. What is War? It is the result of Planetary influences. Somewhere up there two or three planets have approached too near to each other; tension results. Have you noticed how, if a man passes quite close to you on a narrow pavement, you become tense? The same tension takes place between planets. For them it lasts perhaps a second or two. But here, on the Earth, people begin to slaughter one another, and they go on slaughtering maybe for several years. It seems to them at the time that they hate one another, or perhaps they have to slaughter each other for exalted purpose; or that they must defend somebody or something and that is a very noble thing to do; or something else of the same kind They fail to realize to what extent they are mere pawns in the game. They think they signify something; they think they can move about as they like; they think they can decide this or that. But generals, ministers, parliament, kaisers or kings - all their ‘actions’ signify nothing. COMING SOON: Further causes for the reciprocal destruction of three-brained beings. UP! MADONNA DOESN’T EAT LAMB FOETUSES ANY MORE Stella McCartney says she tore a strip off Madonna for wearing a coat made from lamb foetuses. The ardently anti-fur designer spotted her friend in the karakul coat and told her: “I didn’t know you ate foetuses... She was like ‘Eeew!’ I haven’t seen her in it since.” UP! Group Finds Brain Centre for Liking Music Dartmouth College researchers have found that recalling a melody is performed in a part of the brain known as the rostromedial prefrontal cortex. http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=1459&m=5435 UP! GRIM NEWS FOR NON-PAYERS IN THE NEW YEAR Thousands of fine-defaulters (nobody here of course!) face having their vehicles and/or other assets seized unless they pay up. It seems that 40% (read that again!) of all fines are never paid, and £147 million had to be written off last year alone in Britain. U HAVE BEEN BOMMED EH WARNED :( UP! 'IT'S TIME TO TAKE RISKS' “I am using every opportunity to say to people in the government who are in the position that I was during the Vietnam War, and who know that their president is lying us into a wrongful and reckless war, to do what I did: to go to Congress and the press with documents and tell the truth. That would be a risk but there are times when big risks are worth that to save a lot of lives." Daniel Ellsberg In 1971, former marine company commander Daniel Ellsberg famously leaked Pentagon documents that exposed US government lies (don’t mention cherie or enron) and helped end the Vietnam War. In his new book, Secrets, he tells why he did it, and why he’s now calling on today's officials to do the same to the Bush regime - and prevent a war in Iraq 30 years ago, Daniel Ellsberg risked a life sentence (and possibly being bumped off like some others) by leaking 7,000 pages of Pentagon documents which exposed an extraordinary catalogue of lies and duplicity on the part of the US government. Nobody will argue that it helped bring an end to the war in Vietnam. Now he’s finally telling the whole story of how he became perhaps the most important whistle-blower of the past half century. As an analyst with the Rand Corporation, Ellsberg had worked in the Pentagon, and for the state department in Vietnam, but was finally driven by his conscience (and i have always suspected LSD) to reveal how successive US governments had stumbled into a war that cost more than a million Vietnamese and 55,000 American lives, and how successive presidents had lied to the American people about the conflict's conduct and consequences. He photocopied what were to become known as the Pentagon Papers, and then tried to persuade politicians to release them and alert the country. When that failed, he gave them to the New York Times. To ensure that the papers would all be distributed, he went on the run, prompting what was described as "the largest FBI manhunt since the Lindbergh kidnapping". When the FBI finally caught up with him in June 1971, he was charged with 12 felonies and faced 115 years in jail. And he might still be there were it not for the almost psychopathic desire of President Nixon and his team for revenge: a burglary of Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office by Watergate burglars Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt was authorised to find information to discredit him or to drive him to suicide. A team of heavies was recruited to break his legs. His phone was tapped. It also emerged, during his 1973 trial, that the judge had earlier been offered the post of director of the FBI! Once these plots became known, the judge had to abandon the trial and acquit Ellsberg. The Pentagon Papers also helped to so discredit the war that they became one of the key factors in the US's final withdrawal and Nixon's humiliating resignation. (Read Bush). Ellsberg became a counter-cultural hero. (Read the UP! :) Ellsberg sees many parallels between then and now, with the country on the brink of another war. "One of the key differences is that the military now are clearly against this, which was not the case with Vietnam. The military hated the way Lyndon Johnson conducted the war but they wanted to get into it. This military clearly does not want the war so they're leaking. The reasons Bush has given are ridiculous - democracy, give me a break... “There’s great dissent and that is clearly the major reason for the leaking. It is clear that the administration is filled with people who believe this is reckless, unnecessary, foolish... “I’m using every opportunity to say to people in the government who are in the position that I was then, and who know that their president is lying us into a wrongful and reckless war, to do what I wish I had done even earlier, in 1964-65: to go to Congress and the press with documents and tell the truth. That would be a risk but there are times when big risks are worth that to save a lot of lives." Since he doesn't like telling people to take risks that he is not taking, Ellsberg is announcing that his book contains some still unclassified secrets - one about a dialogue between Johnson and the then Canadian prime minister, Lester Pearson, in which nuclear war was discussed as an option in Vietnam. And he’s challenging attorney general John Ashcroft to prosecute him for breaking the law. "There is no set of genes, no hypodermic injection you can take which makes you immune to going along with cruel, indefensible policies that your team and your boss and your president say is what they want to do. I did it, for far too long.” "I have learned more from Dan Ellsberg than from any other person in Vietnam." Henry Kissinger. This credibility, and the fact that Ellsberg was a Harvard-educated former company commander in the Marine corps, who had been under fire in Vietnam, was what made him so dangerous. The almost universally friendly reception of the book has encouraged Ellsberg. Senator and presidential contender John Kerry has praised him for the courage "which undoubtedly saved American lives in the battlefield". Actor Martin Sheen recommends the book as "essential reading for any American who wants to understand true patriotism". But Ellsberg expresses dread at what he fears is an approaching war. "I don't want to test whether Iraqis will fight in their own country for this tyrant, and I do not want to test what Saddam will do if we really set out to kill him. I can't think when I have felt that it was as ominous as it is now." [Secrets by Daniel Ellsberg (Viking Press)] UP! The Art of War? >>> r u listening, george? The generals have a saying: Rather than make the first move it is better to wait and see. Rather than advance an inch it is better to retreat a yard. This is called going forward without advancing, pushing back without using weapons. There is no greater misfortune than underestimating your enemy. Underestimating your enemy means thinking that he is evil. >>> r u listening. george? Thus you destroy your three treasures and become an enemy yourself. >>> pay attention. george? When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield. [commondreams] >>> izzat wot u r doing. george? UP! FUNDAMENTALISM FINALLY GOING OUT OF STYLE? SLIGHTLY MORE POPULAR THAN PROSTITUTES BUT LESS THAN GAYS WITH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC The American Family Association, a far right Washington lobbying group, has just released results of a survey that shows mainstream Americans see evangelical Christians as one of the least likeable groups in the country. Asked how they felt about evangelicals, born-again Christians, ministers, and other groups of people in society, respondents placed evangelicals tenth out of eleven, narrowly beating out prostitutes. Equally shocking to the AFA constituency was that gay men and lesbians, a group conservatives frequently slander and oppose politically, ranked significantly higher in the survey than evangelicals. Data Lounge and whattabout creeping internet fascism /fundamentalism? is the following story part of the swing back against that? CHEF WINS EMAIL SACKING CASE Bruce Sangster, a £57,000 pa executive chef at Lehman Brothers in the City of London, was fired from his job last January for sending a pornographic email. But now a tribunal has ruled that the disciplinary process was “fundamentally flawed”, he was unfairly dismissed, and he could now win tens of thousands of pounds. However it also found he’d been 50% responsible for his own dismissal. Mr Sangster said his email was of the “saucy seaside postcard” variety but the bank said it violated its ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards net porn. The bank might appeal. UP! //YOU FEEDBACK: Fraser, I love the continuity of your passion (anyone can getflash-in-the-pan flares) which cuts through a zillion belief systems. To quote Philip K Dick: “Some form of momentum comes from actually caring about what's real.“ 'Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away'. NOW's really time for the 'HELL NO!!' whatever any of us believes. Looking around in my own small life I notice that me and others are getting into a 'HELL NO!!' mood in lots of little real ways. There's a whole lot of 'HELL NO!!' goin' on. It all adds UP! It will go onwards and UP!wards to the furthest reaches. Each and every one of us can and is doing it.... we're getting in the mood. Thanks. Jackie McKay / London UP! DRUGS SHOULD BE GIVEN OUT AT SCHOOL Rock star Pink has kicked up a micro tabloid storm by saying publicly that drugs can be good for giving people confidence. “You can be the biggest wallflower, and then all of a sudden you can dance like a pro!” Ecstasy, in particular, “should be handed out in school lunch rooms, so we’d actually learn some useful things. You can do a lot more on drugs than you can do sober.” PRESIDENTS COULD USE SOME HELP TOO Adults too could be helped, she said. “President Bush should try some ecstasy, that’s for damn sure!” UP! Yes, it's absurd that Bush baby occupies the Oval Office. I know a few people who, like me, become physically ill when his face appears on tv or in the press rclaire / boston UP! People wonder why most American's don't trust the Bush Wackers. Most of us American's DO NOT WANT TO GO TO WAR.... but something is going to blow. We all know that for sure. Its coming and every one you talk to here in USA knows it. We are all walking on thin ice. hungarian gypsy / michigan UP! PIECEMEAL FAUX JIGSAW PUZZLES Fraser, when I first started reading the UP!, I thought it was seemingly pro-terrorist. Now I realise it’s some kind of massive oratorial missive aimed at getting people to actually look, listen and think, rather than being fed piecemeal faux jigsaw-puzzles by mainstream media. Those who organise terrorism may be dangerous, but the lack of insight today is even more so. Jasper Vader / Mullumbimby UP! "I will not give in to blackmail nor pressures of any kind. I swear to you that I will be with the people my entire life. You brought me here and you are the only ones who can get rid of me. Nobody else is going to take me out of here." Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, SAT, DEC 7, 2002 UP! THE VENEZUELAN “STRIKE” IS AN EMPLOYERS’ LOCKOUT by Bill Vann With a “strike” organised by Venezuela’s employers now into its 3rd week, there is every indication that the country’s being subjected to a classic destabilisation campaign organised in collaboration with US intelligence. Having failed to topple Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a US-backed coup last April, Venezuela’s ruling circles, working in conjunction with Washington, are attempting to force him to resign or provoke a new military seizure of power. The threat that Washington will intervene directly in Venezuela - a strategic source of imported petroleum for the American market - cannot be ruled out. The “strike” which began on December 2 is the joint creation of FEDECAMARAS - Venezuela’s big business association - and the CTV, or Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, a corrupt labour bureaucracy that is closely tied to the AFL-CIO in the US. The CTV is also a recipient of substantial funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a US agency created to funnel funds to foreign organizations that had previously been financed directly by the CIA.. The joint Big Business-CTV action has had its most visible effect on the wealthier neighbourhoods and downtown shopping districts of Caracas, where well-heeled demonstrators - backed by thugs on motorcycles- have forced stores to close. In the working class areas and the impoverished shantytowns in the hills surrounding the capital, there has been little impact on daily activity. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators poured into the capital from these neighbourhoods last week in a demonstration “for democracy and in defence of the constitution” called by supporters of the government, a mobilisation far larger than anything the FEDECAMARAS-CTV actions have been able to mount. To make up for what it lacks in popular support, the anti- Chavez factions have turned to terrorist violence, economic sabotage and a barrage of media propaganda that amounts to a psychological warfare campaign against the population. Last Friday night, as the leaders of the protest were debating whether they could continue their action, shots rang out in a plaza in the wealthy Altamira section of Caracas. Since October the square has been the scene of a farcical demonstration by a group of military officers against Chavez, most of whom were implicated in last April’s aborted coup and have since been relieved of their commands. Working out of a luxury hotel nearby, the generals, admirals and colonels had designated the plaza as “liberated territory.” A number of supporters of the anti-Chavez demonstrations were in the plaza when the shooting began, and at least three lay dead and over a score wounded when it was over. No sooner had the smoke cleared, than General Enrique Medina Gomez, one of the dissident officers, took to the airwaves to blame Chavez and call for the military to overthrow him “like it did on April 11.”. Meanwhile, the country’s main television channels - whose owners are all aligned with the anti-Chavez forces - began broadcasting scenes of the carnage in the plaza over and over again. Meanwhile, there were press reports in Venezuela that one of the suspected gunman filmed at the scene had been seen earlier the same day with the mayor of Caracas, a leading figure in the anti-Chavez movement. This strange assault follows the pattern set last April, in which 18 people were killed and 30 wounded when unknown gunmen fired on an anti-government demonstration, providing the pretext for military coup leaders to lead an assault on the government palace, arrest Chavez and announce the formation of a provisional junta. On that occasion, the rebel generals taped a recording - hours before the shooting - declaring themselves against the government and blaming the government for a number of deaths at the demonstration. Several of those arrested for the shootings were released almost immediately by the short-lived junta. Meanwhile, the strike’s effect has been greatly amplified by the actions of management of the state-owned oil corporation, PDVSA. It was Chavez’s attempt to reorganise this institution - long used as a cash cow by the wealthy supporters of Venezuela’s old ruling parties, Copei and Acción Democrática - that provoked last year’s coup attempt. He subsequently reached an accommodation with these managers, even agreeing to provide them with hefty salary increases. Ships’ officers on oil tankers and private companies that operate oil trucks have been recruited to the anti-Chavez plot in a bid to paralyse the country’s oil industry and thereby shut down its entire economy. Venezuela, the fifth-largest petroleum exporter, is dependent on oil exports for 80% of its foreign earnings. It supplies 13% of the crude oil imported by the US. The US consumes 70% of the 2.5 million barrels of oil Venezuela produces daily. “Petroleum export activity has been paralysed; the activity of the ports has been paralysed; the activity of the refineries is beginning to be paralysed and of course the activity of production as well,” said Ali Rodriguez, president of the PDVSA, on Monday. “We are threatened with a national disaster; no worker who loves his company or his country will permit this to continue.” He warned that unless PDVSA could resume the normal distribution of oil, it would be unable to meet payrolls and payments to suppliers and would be liable to massive fines for failing to meet delivery contracts. Rodriguez is the only one of the eight PDVSA directors who did not resign in protest against Chavez. While refineries are reportedly full to capacity, they’re unable to distribute the oil because of the transportation stoppage. As a result, gas stations have begun closing down and at least one major airline cancelled scores of flights because of concerns over a lack of fuel. Some foreign carriers were also reportedly stopping flights to Caracas, supposedly out of concern that their aircraft could be stranded there. In response, Chavez ordered the military to take control of refineries, oil distribution centres and those oil tankers that had halted operations. In a further attempt to undermine Venezuela’s already depressed economy, banks announced a one-day shutdown Monday and indicated that they would maintain reduced hours and services indefinitely. The atmosphere of provocations and employer-organized economic sabotage recalls the CIA campaign to destabilize the Popular Unity government of Chile’s President Salvador Allende in 1973. It was subsequently revealed that US intelligence, working through both business associations and corrupt right-wing unions, funded a truckers’ strike that paralysed the country. The economic dislocation set the stage for the September 11, 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. There can be little doubt that Washington is deeply involved in instigating the disruptions in Venezuela. Before it launches a war against Iraq, the administration will most certainly assure itself a secure supply of Venezuelan oil. In the long term, the US ruling elite, together with the Venezuelan oligarchs, look to a substantial profit windfall through the privatisation of the state-owned oil company. Since last April, Chavez has sought to accommodate himself to Washington, toning down his nationalist rhetoric and even making a public declaration that Venezuela would remain a “reliable” oil supplier to the US market in the event that an invasion of Iraq disrupted supplies from elsewhere. Besides, the Bush administration is determined to oust Chavez, whose condemnations of US bombings in Afghanistan and friendly ties to Castro’s Cuba provoked Washington’s ire. Like the Venezuelan ruling class, the US administration sees Chavez’s limited reforms and populist appeals to the country’s impoverished masses as an intolerable threat to wealth and privilege. Loyally echoing the position of the administration in Washington, the US mass media has deliberately distorted the whole story. The New York Times refers to it, for example, as a “national walkout,” when in reality relatively few Venezuelan workers have joined the anti-government actions, while most have been locked out by their employers. In some instances, workers have occupied shutdown plants in protest. Similarly, the confrontation is presented as one between a democratic opposition demanding that Chavez submit to a national referendum on his presidency, and an authoritarian regime that is determined to prevent such a vote. Thus, the Times writes that the opposition’s aim is “to avoid having to wait until the next presidential election in 2006” to resolve the crisis. In reality, Venezuela’s constitution, approved by popular vote in 1999, provides for just such a referendum midway through the presidential term, which will be in August 2003. The political representatives of the Venezuelan oligarchy, however, are demanding that Chavez submit to an extra-constitutional vote on February 2. Their unwillingness to wait seven months is bound up with concerns over pending legislation on land reform and the reorganization of the PDVSA, as well as fears within the Venezuelan “democratic” opposition that it cannot achieve the number of votes needed to oust Chavez in any case. Outrage over the local media’s role as a propaganda arm for those seeking to topple the Chavez government led to mass demonstrations outside of TV stations, with thousands of protesters chanting “Coup-mongers, tell the truth!” The five privately owned TV networks have openly promoted anti-government actions, while broadcasting false stories to undermine the government. In Maracay, demonstrators occupied the station. But the protests were met with an angry condemnation from Organization of American States Secretary General César Gaviria, whose condemnation of them as “intimidating actions” and demands that the government “take action” to defend “freedom of the press and of _expression” exposed the bias of this former Colombian president who’s supposed to be mediating a settlement! http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/vene-d11.shtml Meanwhile, Uruguayan EP-FA congressman Jose Bayardi says he has information that far-reaching plans have been put into operation by the CIA and other North American intelligence agencies to overthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias within the year. "The problem is that Venezuelan television and major newspapers have been hiding the true fact that there are huge popular uprisings in support of the Chavez government ... now that Venezuelans are beginning to understand that they have been duped by the anti-government media, they are demanding that these information channels should begin to tell the truth!" http://www.vheadline.com/0212/14248.asp UP! Open Letter to Bush on Venezuela from U.S. Congress Members December 13, 2002 Dear President George W. Bush, Given the high level of political tension in Venezuela, and recognizing that part of the leadership of the opposition is determined to depose President Hugo Chavez by any means, we, the undersigned organizations and persons, urge you to declare unequivocally that the government of the United States is opposed to any unconstitutional or coup attempt against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Also, the White House should affirm that the United States will not recognize diplomatic relations with a government installed by means of a coup. We believe that the silence of the White House after the April 11th coup d'etat, which the Administration appeared to congratulate, is generally seen as a support for a coup. We are concerned by the fact that this perception diminishes the incentives for the opposition and the Chavez government to seek dialogue or a peaceful solution to the current crisis. We are also concerned that, while the top officials of the White House have remained silent, Otto Reich, the Special Envoy for the Western Hemisphere of the State Department, recently denounced the Venezuelan government, saying that, "the existence of elections is not enough to say that a country is democratic." This is a strange departure from diplomatic protocol, and in the light of what happened during the April coup, it has raised the level of suspicion that Venezuelan officials have about Washington's motives. The role of the United States government in the April 11th coup is not clear. We know that some United States officials met with the coup leaders in the months before the coup. Groups involved with the coup also received financing from the United States government. At the same time, the Bush Administration openly expressed its hostility toward the government of President Chavez. According to the office of the Inspector General of the State Department, one of the reasons for this friction was "the participation(of President Chavez in the affairs of the Venezuelan oil company and the impact this could have on the price of oil." Also, the Office of the Inspector General of the State Department, after investigating the role of U.S. officials before and after the April coup, concluded that U.S. warnings against the coup "were perhaps not critical enough. Among these warnings, few went beyond the formulation of common and ritualistic opposition to ‘anti-democratic or unconstitutional change.' Any warning of non-recognition of a coup installed government, economic sanctions or other punitive and corrective actions were few and far between. Retrospectively, this has also been recognized and lamented by some high United States officials." The Inspector General's report also noted that "the fact of having met frequently with those interested in toppling the Chavez government could have been seen as United States backing for their efforts, notwithstanding our ritualistic denunciation of anti-democratic and unconstitutional measures." Given those circumstances, the current silence by the White House about its opposition to a coup d'etat or other unconstitutional defeat of a democratically elected government in Venezuela is seen throughout Venezuela and elsewhere as support for those illegal actions. The opposition leaders, determined to defeat a government, have few incentives to seek a peaceful solution via dialogue if they believe that the United States government would support whatever happens. The government of the United States must demonstrate its current and active support for democratically elected governments. Only a strong statement of condemnation by the White House explaining that the U.S. is opposed to violent or unconstitutional actions, that it will not tolerate a coup government and that it will impose sanctions on any government installed by coup measures, would send the correct and democratic message to the Venezuelan political actors and the other Latin American governments. Therefore, we urge the White House to clarify its position, before Venezuela goes to Civil War. Sincerely, U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Michigan, U.S. Rep. José E. Serrano, New York, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Major R. Owens, New York, etc etc UP! REMEMBER THE LAST IRAQ WAR? WELL, WHAT LIES ARE BEING PLANNED THIS TIME? US propaganda fuelled the first Gulf war and will fuel this one too. As of December 7, when Iraq produced its definitive dossier, there should be no illusions: no matter what Baghdad discloses, America and almost certainly Britain are going to war. The "material breach” will be manufactured as necessary, just as consent was manufactured with breathtaking cynicism in 1991. FIRST WAR FIRST LIE QUARTER MILLION TROOPS POISED TO INVADE SAUDI!!! in the final days before the First Iraq Slaughter, the Pentagon insisted that not only was Saddam not withdrawing from Kuwait - he was! - but that satellite photographs showed he had 265,000 troops poised in the desert to invade Saudi Arabia!!! We now know from declassified documents and other satellite photographs that there were no Iraqi troops poised to attack Saudi Arabia. Only Jean Heller, a five-times nominated Pulitzer prize-winning journalist from Florida’s St Petersburg Times, bothered to ask for proof, persuading her bosses to buy two photos at $1,600 each from Soyuz Karta, a Russian commercial satellite. Which American newspaper would dare to be so “unpatriotic” this time?! And what will the fake satellite pictures show: a massive chemical installation with Iraqi goblins cooking up anthrax perhaps? >>> or an Iraqi “agent” caught in New York with a coke bottle full of bubonic plague, that’s my favourite. The US propaganda machine already has in its sights Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector. Former CIA director James Wolsey told the Today programme last week that he's too much of a softie for Saddam, his work’s of "limited value", and he was Kofi Annan's "second choice". Perhaps we’ll be told next his granny is Iraqi? Or perhaps he’s gotta drugs problem? >>> which would be far les serious than some of the problems the other lot have! British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's embarrassingly error-ridden human rights dossier on Iraq fits perfectly into this whole pattern. FIRST WAR SECOND LIE: DEAD BABIES!!! The consensus-building tactic used in 1991 was another propaganda classic: yes, dead babies! The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington, Nijirah al-Sabah, tearfully described how, as a volunteer in the Al Adnan hospital in Kuwait City, she’d seen Iraqi soldiers looting incubators to take back to Baghdad, pitching the Kuwaiti babies on to "the cold floor to die". >>> really gut-churning for a billionaire princess, right? But it never happened! The two Filipino nurses who worked in the maternity ward there had never seen the ethically minded zillionairess in their lives. By the time Amnesty admitted they’d been duped and Middle East Watch confirmed the fabrication, it was too late: a marginal US congress had been swung into voting for war. AND GEORGE BUSH SR MENTIONED "INCUBATOR BABIES" SEVEN TIMES IN PRE-WAR RALLYING SPEECHES. So be ready for the lies that are being prepared this time! What “material breach” will be “found”? A couple of old washing machines “mistaken” for a nuclear bomm perhaps? YOU be the jury and KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. Especially for that red-handed Iraqi agent with the suitcase full of Bubonic Plague. Ugggh. >>> here do i hand in my resignation? Maggie O'Kane remix. UP! INFORMATION WARFARE IN POST CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA Allen Cohen sforacle@prodigy.net The Federation of American Scientists has pointed to a startling revelation by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld that mainstream media have (somehow) missed: In remarks during a recent press briefing, he suggested that though the controversial Office of Strategic Influence no longer exists in name, its programs continue. The OSI, you remember, came under scrutiny last February, when the New York Times reported that the new Pentagon group was "developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations." The news was met with such wholly appropriate outrage that, within a week, the Pentagon closed it down, saying that negative attention had damaged the office's reputation so much that ”it could not operate effectively." The plan was troubling for many reasons: It was profoundly undemocratic; it would have put journalists' lives at risk by involving them in Pentagon disinformation; and it's almost certain that any large-scale disinformation campaign directed at the foreign press would have led, sooner or later, to falsified stories being repeated at home by U.S. media. At the time, Rumsfeld claimed that he had "never even seen the charter for the office," but Thomas Times, the OSI's assistant for operations, revealed that Rumsfeld had been briefed on its goals "at least twice" and had "given his general support." Here’s what Rumsfeld said at a November 18 media briefing, indicating clearly that though the exposure of OSI's plans forced the Pentagon to close the office, they certainly haven't given up on its work: "And then there was the Office of Strategic Influence. You may recall that. And 'oh my goodness gracious isn't that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall.' I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name. But I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done. And I have." A search of the Nexis database indicates that no major U.S. media outlets - no national broadcast television news shows, no major newspapers, no wire services or major magazines - have reported his remarks. William Arkin argued in a recent Los Angeles Times opinion column that Rumsfeld is redesigning the U.S. military to make "information warfare" central to its functions. This new policy, he said, increasingly "blurs or even erases the boundaries between factual information and news, on the one hand, and public relations, propaganda and psychological warfare, on the other." He ends ominously: "While the policy ostensibly targets foreign enemies, its most likely victim will be the American electorate." http://www.dod.gov/news/Nov/t111_t1118sd.html >>> as if it wasn’t lied to enuff already! UP! WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM WORLD WAR II Harry Browne Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1996 and 2000. World War II is infallibly held up as the one "just" war America has fought. Even critics of the Vietnam War or the so-called War on Terrorism feel obliged to say that WWII was necessary. And that war has since provided a justification for all sorts of military adventures; any critic of the bombing of Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan or some other hapless third-world country, faces the inevitable: - "You would have turned the other cheek after Pearl Harbor." - "Munich showed you must stop a dictator before he's too strong." - "If you'd been in charge in the 1940s, we'd all be speaking Japanese or German today." THE REST OF THE STORY (OR SOME OF IT ANYWAY) But now, in a new book "World War II: The Rest of the Story", Richard Maybury sifts through the known facts agreed by nearly all historians - and assembles the evidence to show irrefutably that: * AMERICA DID NOT ENTER WORLD WAR II TO HELP BRITAIN Hitler had no chance of conquering England - let alone America. His doom was sealed the moment his troops invaded Russia in August 1941. * PEARL HARBOR WAS NO SURPRISE, NOR WAS IT UNPROVOKED. Roosevelt bullied the Japanese in order to provoke a war, the Japanese code had been broken 16 months before, and Secretary of War Stimson wrote in his diary on November 26, 1941: "The question was how we should maneuver them into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves." * THE ATOMIC BOMBS WERE DROPPED ON JAPAN AS TERRORIST WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, NOT FOR MILITARY NEEDS. Japan was already offering to surrender, its homeland was blockaded, and it could not have survived six months even without an invasion. MAKING THE WORLD LOGICAL AGAIN In 1939 most people considered the now-celebrated New Deal to be an abject failure, unemployment was stuck at 17%, and an end to the Depression was nowhere in sight. Roosevelt saw getting into the war as a way to redeem his reputation and join the ranks of the "great" Presidents - wartime leaders like Washington, Lincoln, and Wilson. Maybury ties what happened in World War II to what’s happening today in the so-called War on Terrorism. In fact, he shows that today's crises are simply an extension of a single century-long war. The book’s available at Maybury's website, http://www.earlywarningreport.com/C136UncleEric.html UP! TELESCOPE TO CHALLENGE MOON DOUBTERS By Robert Matthews Conspiracy theorists, you have a problem. In an effort to silence claims that the Apollo moon landings were faked, European scientists are to use the world's newest and largest telescope to see whether the spacecraft are still on the lunar surface. >>> mercy! goddess help us! u mean george can see me wiping my ass... with george bush toilet paper!!??
UP! The Abstract Church of Inspiration We launched our mobile psycho-pad into the streets and went for a long ride. Yoo-Hoo! The sixties were a powerful but humble beginning. This time we're going further. The universe is starting to make sense. We are surfing the info network of cultural evolution. Keeping it quiet... (Are you kidding me?) A lot of people don't understand. The illusion doesn't count. We're an invisible brotherhood of gnomes. Fixing the wrongs of time and space. Wow! This is becoming slightly esoteric.... Watch out for bumps. Bumps with "official" collective "reality". There are some people who think the illusion of "official" collective "reality" i s more important than themselves. And even more important than you. They don't know that this casino game the whole world seems to be playing is a spell cast on us by Satan. These elements have been here for a long time. It's time to applaud something that isn't really madness at all - the positive inner visions we all have. Only difference with "drugs" (psychedelics) is the detail (third eye?) which makes you see for yourself the richness, clearness and godliness which resides in you or not at all. Breaking the rules is part of an ancient tradition. Join the Abstract Church of Inspiration <posted by Dangerous Jesus on the YOUniversity debating board> UP! "MY FAVOURITE COUP" & THE LOVE AFFAIR THE present Iraqi regime is a product of the Ba'athist Party, which the CIA helped bring to power. The CIA officer in charge of the operation described it as “my favourite coup”. During the 1980s, America and Britain supplied Saddam Hussein with every weapon he wanted, often secretly and illegally. The relationship was known cynically in Washington as "the love affair". When Blair and Bush incessantly refer to Saddam "using chemical weapons against his own people", specifically the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988, they never explain that Britain and America were accomplices. Not only did both governments secretly and illegally approve the sale of chemical weapons' agents, officials in Washington and Whitehall tried to cover up the Halabja atrocity. And while the gassing was going on, Saddam Hussein was being congratulated on his wise leadership by David Mellor, a British Foreign Office minister, whose turn it was to sit at the feet of the dictator. Almost as a reward, the Thatcher governments gave Saddam £340million of British taxpayers' money in export credits. When Bush and Blair call Saddam "a threat to his neighbours", they never mention that George Bush Senior, when head of the CIA, pushed Iraq to attack Iran and supplied crucial intelligence to the Iraqi military that ensured the war went on for eight years. The result was millions of dollars in profits for American and British arms firms, and a million young men dead on both sides. A congressional investigation, long forgotten, described this as a "great crime". John Pilger UP! HELP YOUR POLICE FORCE - BEAT YOURSELF UP! OR THE KOPKARMA RAN OVER THE LAZY DOGMAS? German police officers mistakenly beat up two of their own undercover detectives, leaving the authorities facing an embarrassing lawsuit. The incident happened on Saturday 16 November in Hamburg, when police officers were monitoring a rally of some 3,000 people protesting the demolition of illegal squatters' homes. Two plain-clothes agents had infiltrated the crowd to send information to their colleagues but, late in the evening, violence broke out and several hundred helmet-clad riot police clashed with the protesters - including the undercover detectives. A spokesman for the two plain-clothes agents said that even though they’d given their fellow officers a secret password, they were still beaten up. Both officers suffered head injuries from the incident and are now taking legal action. The local police union described the incident as regrettable, and said it was in no way "evidence of more widespread aggression within the police force". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2505261.stm >>> maybe not. but presumably the undercover coppers weren't being violent to the uniformed ones, yet were still beaten up! [sent in by merrick] UP! Prey - Be Afraid Michael Crichton's latest techno-thriller, Prey, fictionalises Bill Joy's notorious Wired article, "WHY THE FUTURE DOESN'T NEED US," which warned, "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species." http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=1460&m=5435 UP! Keep up the Good (very good indeed!) work you do ;-) I’ve included an excerpt and some quotes from the UP! in a coming Rising Phoenix compilation which will be very much in line with much of your tone and drive in this one. Love and blessings Jean Hudon UP! Intel's Grove warns of the end of Moore's Law As chips become increasingly dense, heat developed by current leakage from chips "will become a limiting factor in how complex we can build chips," said Intel chairman Andy Grove. Chips constructed of increasing numbers of transistors can suffer power leakage of up to 40%. http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=1450&m=5435 UP! los angeles SAT DEC 21 Presented by The Learning Party, Mark Trance & Qtopia. Join your soul-family for a truly alternative Christmas celebration. Walk the inward-outward spiral path as a ritual re-enactment of The Unconquered Sun - ancient pagan name for winter solstice. Ancient peoples saw in the longest night of the year an existential turning point. They commemorated this special time with candles and hearth-fires and hearty partying - renewing the eternal flame for a new year. The practice of walking along the path of a labyrinth was used by the ancient pagans and christians as a prayer, meditation and surrogate pilgrimage. We will conjoin these two powerful archaic practices, to the live and mixed acoustic and electronic sonics by the Leticia, Markus Hawkins, C.A., Rik Sharaj, Albert Polito, Cinnamon Twist ... The journey to the center of the spiral is a journey to the center of our own being. It is also a chance to ritually empower our Intentions for the coming year. The spiral ceremony will take place from approx. 8pm to 11pm. Afterwards we'll have yr. favorite fullmoon-desert & underground djs, including a live set by Mark Trance & friends, and a Learning Party ambient room with Phil Harrington, Taffee & FreeX, Rik Sharaj, et al., until the wee hours of the morning. This will all occur in a central Hollywood location. Check the website for details & updates. And please forward this to any friends & family who might be interested. http://www.ioon.net/cropcircles/articles/westoverton2002.html http://www.rlc.dcccd.edu/whitman.htm http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/festivals/christmas.html www.thelearningparty.com U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P the UP! //:-) la - la - la - lap-toppling da system! TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (fraser clark) TJ PHRASER & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD @ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP * * Ideas Per Paragraph U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P FEATURING exclusive rewrites re-takes & re-productions of da freshest deepest hacks ancient and modern, SAMPLES from media & mentalities all over, & bubbling up from da public DNA herself! U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P YOUR PLANET NEEDS //YOU! this HipList grows by recommendation. RECOMMEND SOMEONE 2DAY!!!!!!!!!! * TO DEBATE ANYTHING in the UP!, visit the GroupMind Debating Board on www.parallel-youniversity.com * YES, YES, SEND US EDUTAINING NEWS’N VIEWS no need to ask! :-) * FOR MORE ON RAVE CULTURE & THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT VISIT http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/fraserclark/ * TO BE REMOVED, contact removes@parallel-youniversity.com U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
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