WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
March 6, 2010: The Daily Show, Sarah Palin, Microsoft and back to Mordechai Vanunu
Because I watch The Daily
Show, I learned Sarah Palin was on a Jay Leno show. She got a few laughs,
but nobody was talking about Palin's connections to the top leaders of
"the New Apostolic Reformation/NAR;
a religious
movement that makes geographic maps of where demons reside. The NAR is a
religious network of elites drawn from the ranks of business and government
throughout the world [and] encompasses the humble and the elite alike,
supporting a network of 'prayer warriors' in all 50 states, within the ranks of
the U.S. military, and at the far reaches of the globe -- all guided by an
entire genre of books, texts, videos and other media. The New Apostolic Reformation, is the
largest religious movement you've never heard of."[1]
What we the people for peace,
justice, equal human rights and for an end to war and military occupations are
really up against is the empire of Big Brother; or the dominant or Royal
Consciousness as Walter Brueggemann explains it in, The Prophetic
Imagination.
Brueggemann
describes the ancient Hebrew prophets as itinerant poets, who addressed the
social and political injustices perpetuated by the power structures, and were
routinely ignored or reviled for telling the brutal truth. Brueggemann
also connects the dots between prophecy and politics, “We will not understand the meaning of prophetic imagination
unless we see the connection between the religion of static triumphalism and
the politics of oppression and exploitation.” [2]
“Royal
consciousness is what drives the structures of political power---institutions
that, devoted only to their perpetuation, exploit and oppress the people they
are charged with protecting and serving.
“Royal
Consciousness is concerned only with maintaining the systems that will increase
power and wealth for the few.” [Ibid]
Perpetuating the
status quo is the foremost goal in the maintenance of Royal Consciousness,
which runs through state, church and corporate media.
Hierarchy always
interprets any expression of doubt or inquiry as a threat.
Those that
question a policy or decision are perceived as undermining authority, but
dissent and investigative journalism are the means to assure a healthy democracy.
In 1958, Edward R. Murrow
warned that as television became more about entertainment and not about shows
of enlightenment, the republic would be dumbed down.
The royal consciousness
thrives when people are in a state of comfortable numbness; a society dominated
by the royal consciousness becomes easily anesthetized by politicians who can
also do a little stand up comedy.
Totalitarian regimes control
the people with fear of 'the other' and lives kept busy with keeping roof
above head and any escape from routine is often filled with mindless
entertainment.
But then, the curtain on the
obvious comes down and what is oblivious to most is that things are very wrong
indeed. People are needlessly suffering because of the apathy and especially
the inaction by those with political power- but without the political will to
do the right thing-and they won’t do the right thing, unless their consciences
can be accessed and pricked.
But the situation appears
hopeless, the world is out of balance, tipped on its side by military power and
royal conciseness thrives when ever there are those who believe there is
nothing that be done to fix anything, so why even bother to think about it?
Royal Consciousness thrives whenever
'we' do not consider ‘the other’ as also us-just in different skins and places
in time.
And that is the task of prophetic
imagination: to simply and directly challenge the royal consciousness by being
a voice of Conscience, and it begins with "spying on Americans has become
big business" and the unearthing by
Cryptome provided the lead to a 22-page Microsoft document, outlining how
Microsoft stores all of your private data in their online servers and helps
government agencies obtain your private information without the need for court orders.
"The Senate yesterday approved a
sweeping measure that would expand the government's clandestine surveillance
powers, delivering a key victory to the White House by approving the telecom
immunity provision…the Senate approved the reauthorization of a law that would
give the government greater powers to eavesdrop in terrorism and intelligence
cases without obtaining warrants from a secret court…The most important change
approved by the Senate yesterday would make permanent a law approved last
August that expanded the government's authority to intercept -- without a court
order -- the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States
communicating with others overseas." [3]
In my second book, I wrote: On February 22, 2006, in a Jerusalem court it
was revealed that Israel had asked Microsoft to hand over all the details of
Vanunu's Hotmail account before a court order had been obtained, while eluding
that Vanunu was being investigated for espionage.
Vanunu wrote:
"Microsoft obeyed the orders and gave
them all the details…three months before I was arrested and my computers were
confiscated.It is strange to ask Microsoft to give this
information before obtaining the court order to listen to my private
conversations. It means they wanted to go through my emails in secret, or
maybe, with the help of the secret services, the Shaback, Mossad.”
Vanunu's attorney also proved that the
police had misled the judges who gave the orders to arrest him, to search his
room, to go through his email, confiscate his computers and that the police also
misled Microsoft to believe they were helping in a case of espionage.
Vanunu explained, “The State came to the
court with two special secret Government orders; Hisaion [documents or
information that are deemed confidential by the government and kept from the
court, the defendant, and lawyers.] This allows the prosecution to keep
documents related to my court hearing secret. One was from the Minister for
Interior Security and one from the Minister of Defense."
When I questioned Vanunu, regarding his Attorney,
Michael Sfard’s requests to Police Representative Mr. Peterburg, to
specifically state what type of espionage activity the police alluded Vanunu was being accused of, Vanunu replied in an email:
"The policeman did not have any answers
and said that he brought all the evidence to the court. When Sfard asked him
again about any material related to the 'espionage' [charge] Peterburg had no
answers. Sfard
proved that the police had misled the judges who gave the orders to arrest me:
to search my room, to go through my email, to confiscate my computers and [that
they] misled Microsoft to believe they are helping in a case of
espionage."
Shortly after being released from 18 years in a tomb sized cell, Vanunu said, "I
am the same man as I used to be in the prison, defending my right to freedom of
speech. That was my fight for 18 years, all the time demanding the right to
speak. That’s what I did and continue to do now that I’m free. The Israel
government continue to pursue me, don’t want to let me go free after 18 years.
I don’t have any more secrets, so the Israeli government should realize this
case is over, dead --they should let me go.”
Vanunu is still waiting in Jerusalem for the right to leave the state
and fade away into history instead of continuing to make it. And I have begun writing my third book-which is a lot about stumbling into being the only reporter in the world who bothered to document Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM OF SPEECH Trial since it began, 25 January 2006.
I also reported on Naomi Klein's, 2007, book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, and connected these dots in 2008:
After
the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, but
then came 9/11, and "suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any
company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders
from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many
of the country's most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's
status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind
of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom--a living example of how to enjoy
relative safety amid constant war.
"Israel now sends $1.2 billion in
"defense" products to the United States—up dramatically from $270
million in 1999. That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the
world.
"Much of this growth has been in the so-called "homeland security"
sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By
the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2
billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the
occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a
brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the
Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on
terror.
"Israel's policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off
the occupied territories are also laboratories where the terrifying
tools of our security states are being field-tested
Palestinians--whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli
politicians are already calling 'Hamasistan'--are no longer just
targets. They are guinea pigs." [4]
Poster-boy
for Israel's Industrial Security/Surveillance Complex is Mordechai Vanunu. Every email Vanunu has ever
written, snail mail received, phone call conversation and walk he has
ever taken through east Jerusalem, has potentially been monitored 24/7,
since his release from an Israeli prison in 2004.
During
my first trip to east Jerusalem in June 2005, Vanunu told me that
during the first two years of his 18 years in jail [most all in
solitary confinement] a light shone above his head 24/7 in a tomb sized
cell. When ever he closed his eyes a guard would come in and shine a
brighter light into his face and say, "Just checking if you had
committed suicide yet."
In 2008, and thirty odd years from my first time, I reread Orwell's 1984,
that was published in 1949. I was struck at how much Vanunu reminded me
of Winston Smith, Orwell's man with an independent thought that Big
Brother; The Party incarnate found so threatening they tortured him
beyond his endurance in order to break him, brainwash him and strip him
of his humanity.
In
1987, in Ashkelon Prison, Vanunu wrote, I had "no choice. I'm a little
man, a citizen, one of the people, but I'll do what I have to. I've
heard the voice of my conscience and there's nowhere to hide…yes, it's
there all right. I'm all right. I do see the monster. I'm part of the
system. I signed this form. Only now I am reading the rest of it. This
bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me. Who else knows? Who has seen?
Who has heard?" [5]
"A
working prophet, is able to see deeper than most of us into the human
soul. Orwell in 1948 understood that despite the Axis defeat, the will
to fascism had not gone away…the irresistible human addiction to power
were already long in place…the means of surveillance in Winston Smith's
era…[are] primitive next to the wonders of computer technology…most
notably the Internet." [6]
"Universal
peace and justice are the goals of man, and the prophets have faith
that in spite of all errors and sins…[and] although under the illusion
of fighting for peace and democracy…all the fighting nations lost moral
considerations…the unlimited destruction of civilian populations…atomic
bombs…can human nature be changed so that man will forget his longing
for freedom, dignity, integrity, love-can man forget that he is human?"
[7]
In
Orwell's epic, Winston Smith played the role of the archetype of all
threats to Big Brother; an individual with an open and free mind,
independent thought, memory of history, a voice of dissent and willing
to take bold action. Orwell's Big Brother tortured all threats in order
to get inside their head and then to brainwash them into accepting
doublethink as truth.
The
atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a baby step
compared to the 21st century slaughter that can be achieved by
thermonuclear weapons with capacities to wipe out 100% of a country
within minutes. The Industrial Military Complex cranks out new weapons
about every five years and soon the minds driven mad with
doublethink-"war is peace"- will create 100 or 1,000 megaton bombs.
"Orwell
demonstrates the illusion of the assumption that democracy can continue
to exist in a world preparing for nuclear war, leaders have only one
aim, and that is power, and power means to inflict unlimited pain and
suffering to another human being.
"How can a minority of one be
right? We spend a considerable part of our income and energy in
building thermonuclear weapons, and close our minds to the fact that
they might go off and destroy one third or one half of our population
and that of the enemy, another example of doublethink-and from a Christian
standpoint" there is the evil of killing any other. [Ibid]
From emails Vanunu wrote between March 24-27, 2008:
"Court
hearing postponed to May 13, 2008-the appeal against 6 month prison
sentence for speaking to foreign media...I
think the hearing was postponed because, from the beginning of the
trial until now, they really don't know what they want. All was a game
to try to put me under new pressure to see if they can gain something
by holding me here.
"All
this means is that Israel just continues what they have done since my
release in 2004, delaying and holding me here instead of sending me for
real freedom. They want me very poor and angry, but I am surviving. One
thing is very clear: my case is over. They should let me go free.
"My
lawyer is very busy with the trial of the previous president, Kasav. He
was accused of rape and sexual harassment by many women in his office,
while as a minister office many years ago, and again in his palace as
president. But the turmoil here is that the prosecutor made a deal with
him; no trial no prison sentence, just a symbolic punishment. So today
he will go to court with my lawyer to get his deal and be totally free.
"There
is a lot of suffering here. Israel wants to hide so much because it is
not good for its image as a democracy and a friend of America…1984, yes I read it many times and many years ago. 1984 is here." [8]
And because I watch The Daily Show, I learned
Sarah Palin was on a Jay Leno show.She got a few laughs...
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel