The High Price of Materialism

Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada's Pacific Coast

Ribbons of Death

Shame on Costa Rica

World Wide shame in COSTA RICA












Please distribute widely

The Turtle eggs are stolen to be sold

Sylvia Earle - Protect Our Oceans

How we treat each other is how we treat the environment. - John Frances

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

---

Earth's Eighth Continent

It swirls. It grows. It's a massive, floating 'garbage patch.'

View full article and comments here http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/11/21/PacificGarbagePatch/

By David Reid

Published: November 21, 2007

The Phoenix

Located in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii and measuring in at roughly twice the size of Texas, this elusive mass is home to hundreds of species of marine life and is constantly expanding. It has tripled in size since the middle of the 1990s and could grow tenfold in the next decade.

Although no official title has been given to the mass yet, a popular label thus far has been "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

As suggested by the name, the island is almost entirely comprises human-made trash. It currently weighs approximately 3.5 million tons with a concentration of 3.34 million pieces of garbage per square kilometer, 80 per cent of which is plastic.

Due to the Patch's location in the North Pacific Gyre, its growth is guaranteed to continue as this Africa-sized section of ocean spins in a vortex that effectively traps flotsam.

Few visitors

The cause for the Patch's relative lack of acknowledgment is that the portion of the Pacific it occupies is almost entirely unvisited. It lacks the wind to attract sailing vessels, the biology to encourage fishing, and is not in the path of major shipping lanes.

What little air movement there is blows inwards, further trapping the garbage.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Marcus Eriksen, a director at the Algatita Marine Research Foundation, said that "with the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping."

While the trash is in the ocean, it is doing what could be irreparable harm to sea life, the water it's in, and eventually humans.

Plastic resists biodegrading. Instead, a plastic shopping bag or pop bottle will photo-degrade over time, meaning that it will break down into smaller and smaller pieces but retain its original molecular composition.

The result is a great amount of fine plastic sand that resembles food to many creatures.

Unfortunately, the plastic cannot be digested, so sea birds or fish can eventually starve to death with a stomach full of plastic.

Even if the amount of plastic in a creature's body is not enough to block the passage of food, the small pellets act as sponges for several toxins, concentrating chemicals such as DDT to 1 million times the normal level.

This concentration then works its way up the food chain until a fish is served at our dinner table.

A deadly shining

Some birds, attracted to the shining in the ocean, approach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in search of food. Marine researchers have commented that pelicans dissected in that area have stomachs so full of lighters that they resemble convenience stores. Sea turtles are also prone to mistaking plastic bags for jelly fish, which then cause their deaths or sit in their guts for the decades it takes the bags to break down.

In total, 267 species have been reported to have eaten from, or become entangled in, the Patch.

According to Chris Parry of the California Coastal Commission, regrettably little can be done to clean up the Patch, although many urge that a decreased reliance on plastic is the first step.

"At this point," said Parry, "cleaning it up isn't an option . . . it's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."

"The long-term solution is to stop producing as much plastic products at home and change our consumption habits."

Cleaning up the Patch will likely cost billions of dollars and, as an approximation, be more difficult than vacuuming every inch of the United States. The plastic and garbage reach more than 30 metres down into the ocean and a great number of organisms would be destroyed in the process.

So far, no country has so much as proposed a solution, presumably because no nation wishes to claim responsibility.

Even if all plastic usage were to stop immediately, future geologists would be able to clearly mark the stratum designating the 20th and 21st century by an indelible layer of plastic coating the world's oceans.

Related Tyee stories:

• The Plastic Sea
  An ocean awash in lethal bags, bottles, pellets, line, tarps and diapers.
• How BC Killed All the Sharks
  Excerpted: 'Basking Sharks: The Slaughter of B.C.'s Gentle Giants'
• Whale Killing War Games
  Enviro groups slam Canada's sonar in naval mock-up.

David Reid is a reporter for The Phoenix, the student newspaper of UBC Okanagan, where this first appeared.

A Brilliant Argument

Zeitgeist the Movie

This is amazing! A must see.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

"I just watched all 3. I think this is one of best films to come out.
This is not the final release yet. The first one just blew me away.
Just watch the first 6-7 mins and see for yourself. "

ZEITGEIST Part I "The Greatest Story Ever Told"
True Foundation of Christianity
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8461754114455236037

ZEITGEIST Part II "All The World's a stage"
September 11th 2001 was the production of the century.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2602704786128880796

ZEITGEIST Part III "Don't mind the men behind the curtain"
The Revolution is Now.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8450558837192717138

What Do We Do? (Updated from June, 2004)

BY: By John Kaminski

Written by John Kaminski Dec. 27, 2003

These are impossible questions, ones which I cannot answer. Perhaps one of you can.

What do we do when the very people supposed to be protecting us are actually harming us? Robbing us, poisoning us, deliberately asphyxiating us, putting things in our water that make us docile, giving us foods and medicines that make us sick, and in general preventing us from living our lives in what we believe is a normal manner.

What do we do when the society in which we live prevents us from being moral? Or from telling the truth as we see it? What do we do when our society encourages us not to question statements that we know in our hearts to be lies?

What do we do when our TV and newspapers tell us lies but insist we should regard this information as truth? What do we do when the vast majority of people in our society accepts these lies as truths and ridicules us when we call these statements lies?

What do we do when we have a legitimate grievance and can't get it redressed without bribing somone? What do we do when we can't trust our courts? How are we to respond when we learn that a private company controls all of our money? Or that the government has the right to poison your baby before you take her home from the hospital?

What do we do when the leader of our country, the occupant of the most prestigious office in the world, is a pill-popping psychopath with no discernible personality whose favorite hobby is killing large numbers of people, either by signing death warrants to execute mentally defective miscreants or ordering airstrikes against innocent women and children tens of thousands of miles away?

What do we do when all those around him, including the so-called political opposition, seem to agree with everything he says and does, and otherwise act as if this demented demagogue pathologically predisposed to obliterating the whole world is actually a normal human being?

It used to be the American way dictated if you didn't like the way the government worked, you could go to the polls and vote for an opposition candidate who promised to change things. What do we do when all the candidates who are running for every office are all basically saying the same thing and endorsing all the harmful things that are being done?

What do we do when the concept of one person, one vote has been completely destroyed by computerized voting machines that no one can verify, except the companies that own them, which are themselves owned by rich white men who support the man who got the votes that no independent agency is able to authenticate?

What do we do we when can't trust the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the medicines we take to make us well? How are we to regard these efforts to criminalize vitamins and other health foods when the doctors we go to prescribe medicines that are less effective than those beneficial substances they have worked so hard to ban?

What do we do when our nation decides to go into a state of permanent war, choosing hapless countries to attack and then obliterating them, then fleeces its own citizens with devious legislation that funnels billions of dollars to companies to reconstruct what we've just destroyed for reasons we later learn were transparent lies? How are we to regard such a country, such a group of men who would do such a thing to their fellow human beings?

And how are we to regard ourselves for believing and supporting such insane and inhuman policies?

What do we do when the vast majority of American citizens refuses to even recognize that anything is out of whack?

What do we do when government employees tinker with diseases in a laboratory, and then suddenly the whole country is stricken with a new kind of flu, one that kills children in Colorado and keeps everyone coughing indefinitely all across the nation? Why is it when you look up epidemics in history, you find that most of the recent ones occurred after vaccination campaigns? Why do you feel so uneasy when they tell you to get a flu shot? Or if you're in the military, when they tell you to get an anthrax shot?

Why does the American government seem so intent on destroying the lives of its own soldiers? Why do American soldiers seem so willing to shoot innocent women and children? Iraq or Afghanistan were never threats to America. Why do our children so eagerly shoot those people down like dogs? Is that what we really taught them to do in our humble homes? Is it? Are you absolutely sure we didn't? If we didn't, why do they?

What do we do when you can't get any public officials to comment on why there are all these strange cloud markings in the sky " some call them chemtrails " and so many people are sick with respiratory problems? Or perhaps it's the soot in the air, in increased amounts these days because air quality rules have been rolled back by the President who was elected on the basis of votes we were not allowed to recount.

What do we do when they tell us we have to rearrange our lives because of the threat of "terror"? These rearrangements, at least these days, are primarily based on the precedents set by the "terror" attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which many thousands lost their lives in New York City and Washington, D.C. These "terrorists" have "terrorized" the world ever since, causing us to go to war in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Who are these "terrorists?" Why has no evidence ever been presented linking them to 9/11? Why was the Afghanistan war planned before 9/11 if it was blamed on 9/11? Why was the war in Iraq blamed on weapons of mass destruction and connection to 9/11 when it was planned long before 9/11? Why didn't the government ever catch those responsible for the anthrax attacks, especially after the trail of suspicion led right back to government employees? Why didn't anybody in Congress read the legislation before voting for the initial Patriot Act?

Why has nobody protested the nullification of our Constitutional rights? Especially when the so-called "terror" threatening our security is clearly a behind-the-scenes construction of our own intelligence agencies.

What do we do when the Vice President brings all the top oilmen in the country to his office to create a new energy policy, then they all fleece the citizens of California of billions of dollars in energy overcharges, the principal energy broker presides over the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and is not prosecuted, a well-connected actor is elected governor of California to stop efforts to recover this stolen energy money, and the Vice President continues to draw a salary from the same company that receives billions of dollars in lucrative reconstruction contracts for rebuilding Iraq, which is the country we bombed on the basis of lies that were based on the "terror" that caused 9/11, for which they refuse to provide the evidence?

When you wave your American flag today, do you realize it means you are endorsing mass murder and exploitation all over the world? Do you realize the reasons for this demonic behavior are all lies? Do you realize America creates wars to stimulate profits, and has done this consistently for more than a hundred years?

How come so many of our own military servicepeople are returning from Iraq to America with really strange diseases? How come we use radioactive ammunition when we know it has made thousands sick? How come we give soldiers shots to prevent diseases but we won't tell them what is in those shots? How come the military doesn't desert when they learn all these things, and how come parents can be proud when they bury their children who died in a war that fought for reasons we now know to have been lies? What's up with that?

What do we do when America moves all its best jobs overseas because of the cheaper labor? What are Americans supposed to do about that? Start their own businesses and keep their products here at home? Hmmm.

What do we do when we can't trust the cops? Whom do we call for help then? When we see our president committing obvious moral and legal crimes and then lying about them, whom do we call to have him arrested? What do we do when we mention this to opposition candidates and they don't answer us?

We can no longer afford to support a government that does not support its people! But what do we do?

We need to begin meeting with small groups of like-minded people who are as aghast as we are to find out how to begin processes of how to arrest and prosecute our criminal leaders. This will be very difficult.

It's not just a matter of canvassing social clubs and political parties. Both categories are largely brain dead and irrelevant, mindless flag wavers interested more in eating and drinking than in actual freedom. Nor is it productive to stage mass rallies with fractured focuses, where the main message of fading freedom is lost amid a confusing welter of conflicting passions.

No, this requires the creation of new groups, ones devoted to real education and not coopted. Pay particularly attention to the word "coopted," and maybe extend it to "infiltrated." This is a situation that applies to militias and politically oriented environmental groups. Both are now under extreme scrutiny by the feds, who are armed with draconian new laws that permit them to throw you in jail for the most trivial reasons.

But the need to be very careful should not stop you from trying to discern and organize people who are genuinely interested in the principles of freedom, in maintaining the attitudes that could make America what we always hoped it would be, and ending this criminal caricature that it has become.

At some point very soon, we all need to address our public officials, and determine if they are going to side with the people who are being oppressed or with the oppressors who are being bribed to fleece and shackle the people.

These are the questions we need to ask them:

Why are there two sets of laws in this country, one for the poor that guarantees they will continue to live in poverty, and one for the rich, which assures they can get away anything as long as they pay the right person? Why is it that our Attorney General approves of the indefinite incarceration of innocent foreigners without having to present any evidence, yet refuses to investigate charges of treason, obstruction of justice, mega grand theft and mass murder against the rich and powerful men who have seized control of what was once a free country? Who will investigate law enforcement when the law enforcers have turned criminal? Why was Dick Cheney allowed to keep secret the master plan for robbing Californians of $11 billion?

Why have all laws protecting the environment been repealed when we know the infusion of poisons into products is needlessly killing large numbers of people? Why are we deliberately fouling our air with poisonous chemtrails, and why is it no government official will say a thing about this?

Why is there a deliberate obstruction created by Ashcroft to prevent ordinary people from finding out what their government is doing to them? Why are ingredients like flouride and aspartame permitted in what we consume when everyone knows they are poisoning us?

Why are our schools turning out children who can't spell or think for themselves? And why does our government seek to take away money for those schools and give it to self-serving, thought-limiting religious schools, especially when the Constitution that used to be in force expressly prohibits such transparent favoritism?

The police state is here. Your rights have been taken away, one by one. It is now illegal to think for yourself. Just try to examine evidence showing the Germans never willingly gassed anyone during World War II. You can be thrown in jail just for trying. And knowing that, what does that tell you about the original question? Do you see anything wrong with outlawing certain thoughts? If you don't, then you probably don't have any questions about where you went to school, or what church you go to, and you also probably don't see any purpose in any of this I've just written.

Our reliance on mass media has dulled our minds, our reliance on prepackaged foods has anesthetized our senses and atrophied our bodies, and our reliance on establishment religion has shackled our spirits, and made us cogs in a mindless machine rather than the sensitive seeds in the soil we need to be to fulfill our human birthright.

We need to grow our own food, make our own clothes, live in our own houses. We need to break the backs of the bankers who control us with things we don't really need. What do we do with all this time our modern conveniences give us? We seek out more distractions to keep us separate from those we love. All these consumables we covet just make us hate ourselves more, because, deep down, we all know we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing.

What we're supposed to be doing is making a better world, making sure people are not suffering, making sure that we're not destroying the very things that keep us alive. We are not supposed to be increasingly alienating ourselves with false styles and transitory titillations that prevent us from nourishing the very things that nourish us. We are not supposed to be taking pills to make us feel better, we are supposed to be living lives that make us feel better.

The existing political structure in America is rotten to the core, fatally polluted by a private money supply that enables perverted patricians to retain their aristocratic power across the generations. Until this injustice is eliminated, and the power over money is returned to the people, nothing will be fixed, and the unjust wars will proliferate.

Instead of leading a more humane world into a new era of enlightenment, understanding and technological diversity, America is dragging the world backwards into a new Dark Ages where force of plunder is annihilating legitimate efforts toward reciprocal respect and cooperation.

Under present circumstances, there is no alternative to the mass dismissal and prosecution of the entire American government " the administration, the congress, the judiciary all must be indicted for criminal corruption. To do this, a massive campaign of recalibration needs to be undertaken. Starting at the local level, delegates to form a new government need to be chosen, preferably without political campaigns (and certainly without funded campaigns). These local delegates need to congeal at the state level, and begin the arduous task of reconstituting the federal government without political campaigns.

Once a temporary U.S. Senate is chosen by the states, new elections can be held for the House of Representatives, which then would choose a new Senate as a precondition for being able to hold a nationwide election for higher leadership positions. In the interim, a temporary administrative transition team would coordinate the operations of the federal government, once all the Cabinet-level leaders had been jailed. Who would be named to this team, and how it would be named, remain to be seen. Certainly political parties, military and religious leaders, unions, newspapers, bankers, lawyers and doctors should not be involved in this selection process. Or perhaps they all should. The one thing to be avoided is the dominance of any one segment of society over the entire government, as it is now by lawyers masquerading as professional politicians.

The only way to get a truly representative and functional government is to severely regulate the use of mass media in campaigning, enforce strict term limits for all offices, and to radically revise all laws governing banks. Usury must be abolished, and upper limits on income established, now that we are all certain unregulated capitalism is the cause of most of the world's problems.

All the budgets of the world can be balanced by the simple confiscations of most of the fortunes of the world's wealthiest people, like the Rothschild, Bush and Windsor families. Relax, patricians, you'll still be able to buy your way out of trouble. We won't take it all, just most of it. Besides, many members of these families won't need their money if they're all living at Guantanamo, which should probably be renamed Camp Bush.

No more is it a question of trying to get ahead in this society. This society is broken. It is time to forge a new world, not based on domination, exploitation and war. We must stop regarding the idea of revolution as merely an abstract concept, and realize that a functioning, purposeful revolution is the only way most of us are going to survive. Otherwise, the certainty of slavery for 90 percent of the world's population is unavoidable, and that will only perpetuate the same problems that continue to afflict us.

How we can effect these necessary changes absolutely vital to our collective survival are questions that you, dear reader, must now answer. It is essential that your share your conclusions with others, and not just keep them to yourselves.

If you don't see the need for any of these questions I've just posed, let me ask you this:

What will you do when they come for you?

John Kaminski

Web posted at: http://www.rense.com/general46/whatdo.html

Grove of giant trees attracts growing attention

Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
Monday, May 28, 2007




old growth grove on the Koksilah River
Darren Stone, Times Colonist

Environmentalist Jessi Junkin in an old growth grove on the Koksilah River surrounded by areas where selected logging is slated to occur

Dwarfed by two giants, Austrian tourist Markus Czizek looked skyward in awe.

"Not at all do we have trees like this in Austria. Maybe one third the size," he said, his arms stretched between two 80 metre old-growth Douglas firs.

The grove of massive Douglas firs and cedars, beside the Koksilah River, is attracting increasing attention, despite its remote location and the fact that it is on private land owned by TimberWest.

"You should preserve the whole area. That's my position. It's just awesome," said Czizek, who hiked into the area with a group organized by Midnight Sun Adventure Travel.

International demand to see big trees, big mountains and nature in the raw is growing and Vancouver Island needs to protect such areas, said Scott Bonner, Midnight Sun managing director.

"People want to get away from noise pollution and sight pollution," Bonner said. "What do we hear in the woods? We hear nature."

Czizek's view of Vancouver Island was coloured by his trip to the big trees.

"There's so much nature here and no one knows about Vancouver Island. I came here almost by accident and now I have found out what kind of nature you have here," he said, perched on a huge fallen tree.

The stand of old-growth trees, almost two decades ago, inspired a group of Fletcher Challenge loggers to put down their chainsaws, risking their jobs in an effort to persuade the company to preserve the area.

The grove was eventually put into a land reserve by the company.

But work is likely to start within two or three weeks on rebuilding the logging road in the area and, once that work starts, TimberWest does not want tree tourists in the area.

"It's a public safety issue," said spokesman Steve Lorimer, from the company which is now owner of the area.

The idea of companies taking tourists onto private land also rankles him. "If they are conducting a commercial operation on our private land, without consulting the landowner, I think that's very disrespectful," Lorimer said.

TimberWest is planning to save four hectares of the biggest trees, but selectively helicopter log around the outside of the area and conventionally harvest areas beyond the protective fringe.

That is not good enough, said Don Hughes, the retired logger who led the 1989 revolt.

Hughes, looking at pink ribbons, marking where the deer trail, with soft shale and scree, will be turned into a logging road, said landslides are inevitable. "Before, the road slid down and then they opened it up and it slid again. The ground is unstable," he said.

Lorimer said specialists are dealing with the road building. "The road will be constructed accordingly."

But, it is the logging marks on the old-growth trees which incense Hughes and he does not believe reserving four hectares will be any use, once wind and storms sweep through the grove.

"I just keep praying that it will be saved. If these people are willing to walk this far on a goat trail, it has public interest," he said.

Jessi Junkin, Western Canada Wilderness Committee campaign assistant, who made the trek Monday, said government should legislate protection for the remaining one per cent of coastal Douglas fir on Vancouver Island, whether it is on Crown or private land.

Forests Minister Rich Coleman, who announced last week that the province will be shifting away from harvesting coastal old growth forests, was planning to ask TimberWest executives about the area at a meeting last night.

However, the province has no jurisdiction over private land, and new forest policies, coming shortly, apply to Crown land, Coleman said.

Lorimer said there have been inquiries about the area from a provincial ministry, but no offer to buy it as park. "Right now, it seems to be fair to let government agencies take a look at it," he said.

Times Colonist
giant Douglas Firs

One of the most important speeches ever made at the United Nations

The Terrorists ( are close to home )

The Terrorists

By Virato

If terrorists themselves had infiltrated our government and taken control of our country, they could not have done a better job than George W. Bush and his regime. Bush is just the latest incarnation of self-serving, darker forces that have progressively insinuated themselves into our government.

Like his predecessors, Bush is a puppet of the underlying financial-military-industrial crime syndicate that has animated and controlled our government for many years.

In their most incredible fantasy, no external terrorist with suicide bombs or box cutters could have ever imagined being able to devastate this country as Bush and his thugs have done. The forces that control our government have fanned the flames of global terrorism, deliberately creating a clash of civilizations between the Christian West and the world of Islam so as to further their philosophical, political, and economic agendas.

They have shredded the constitution, are in the process of taking away our freedoms, and are turning the US into a fascist, police state.

They have started illegal, pre-emptive wars – the number one war crime according to international law--that were, from the beginning based on lies, greed and imperialism. These criminals have broken domestic and international law, ruined our international reputation and standing in the world, alienated us from our long-time allies, and have turned the overwhelming majority of the world against us.

Most nations now consider us to be the biggest threat to world peace.

They have just about broken our military, corrupted our voting system, incapacitated our legal system, are on the way to bankrupting our social services, health-care, arts and education, “redistributed” (i.e., stole) wealth from the poor to the rich, emptied our treasury and are destroying our economy (which is now on life-support, fully dependent on foreign countries for its survival).

The Executive branch of our present government has plunged us into unimaginable debt, a form of slavery that will take generations to pay off, and they have shortsightedly raped and pillaged our environment for their financial gain.

These madmen and women have not only ignored, but forcefully obstructed actions that would have helped deal with global warming. Incredible as it may seem, they themselves are actively participating in creating global warming, destroying the life-support system of the planet, like some sort of apocalyptic cult. Instead of doing what it alone is in a position to do: bring the era of nuclear weaponry to an end, our government has instead taken actions to “heat up” the nuclear arms race.

The seemingly endless list of ongoing nightmares perpetrated by this government challenges the imagination. And I haven’t mentioned 9/11! Does anyone in their right mind truly think that the same planetary pirates that are in the process of destroying our country from within are not also behind 9/11 and its cover-up?

To quote retired Air Force colonel Guy S. Razer, “The attack on 9/11 was planned, organized and committed by treasonous perpetrators that have infiltrated the highest levels of our government.”

Who else do we possibly think has both the motive, as well as the capability to simultaneously perpetrate and cover-up what happened on 9/11?

One of the reasons this is hard to see is that these global terrorists are committing such unspeakable acts that we have trouble even imagining that any human would do such horrible things.

Our lack of imagination works to the terrorist’s advantage.

What they are doing is so off normal human behavior it is incomprehensible to us, which is the very blind spot that allows them to get away with it.

We hadn’t seen the depth of the evil being acted out before because it was so overwhelmingly transparent that we didn’t see it.

When seen clearly, it could not be more obvious that 9/11, one of the worst war-crimes in all of history, was an ‘opportunity’ which was only able to be successfully pulled off, covered up and capitalized on by the same financial-military-industrial crime syndicate which has taken over our government and is trying to extend its tentacles to the furthest reaches of the planet.

If you think that this is exaggeration or paranoia, you are invited to open your eyes, explore the evidence – right in front of your eyes – and look at what is actually being done in your name (see www.911truth.org).

U.S. political and military documents openly proclaim that the establishment of an empire that includes the whole world--a fascist global Pax Americana-- is their goal.

Virulent parasites have invaded the body politic of our nation and are consuming it from within. Speaking from a spiritual point of view, eminent theologian David Ray Griffin says, “…demonic power is now firmly lodged in the United States, especially in its government, its corporate heads, the ‘defense’ industries, its plutocratic wealthy class more generally, and its ideologues.”

If you believe you are disempowered, and you remain silent, you have allowed this evil to be done both in your name and to you, which is to say you are complicit in your own enslavement.

It is far more than allowing our pockets to be picked. It is like enabling someone who is stealing our national soul. Just like in a dysfunctional home suffering from abuse, the violence in a family system (our nation) is only possible if the rest of the family members (us) agree to keep silent and stay passive, which is to say we are all thereby complicit in allowing the abuse to happen.

The forces that have taken over our country are actually global terrorists who rule by creating terror, intimidating and subjugating people through fear, all under the guise of their mafia “protection” being for our own good.

To believe that this is a crazy conspiracy theory is like being sound asleep while your house is being ransacked. We mustn’t be complacent; we can’t just naively depend upon some off-planet deity, as we ourselves are responsible for how things turn out. If you saw The Secret, you have a good idea of what I am saying. We must use the Divine power within ourselves to effectively and creatively respond to our predicament.

The terrorists we fear should not be external terrorists, but rather domestic terrorists that have taken over our government, the very institution which is supposedly protecting us from terrorists. The military-industrial-financial crime syndicate that controls our government is a true terrorist organization which rules through the creation of terror. The ‘global war on terrorism’ is not a war ‘on’ terrorism; it is a war ‘of’ terrorism.

To realize those who are supposedly protecting us are the very ones from whom we need protection is inducing a form of post-traumatic-stress disorder.

What’s happening in our country, and our world, is revealing to us a process that is going on deep inside each of us. Playing on the world stage is a drama that exists deep within the collective psyche of humanity.

Dark forces trying to “take over” and possess someone (be it an individual, home, nation, or planet) is an eternal recurring drama that exists deep inside the collective unconscious and has played itself out in this world in many variations.

However, at this moment in time, these dark forces have it within their grasp to accomplish their evil intentions on a grand scale, previously unimagined. The only thing that can get in their way is enough of us who are awake and see what they are doing. Just like a vampire that can’t stand the light; these dark forces cannot stand the light of consciousness.

‘The global war on terror’ is a war on consciousness.

Because it can potentially expand our consciousness, the war on consciousness is itself the very catalyst and instrument for consciousness to awaken to itself. When enough of us recognize what is being revealed, we can connect with each other through the open heart of lucid awareness and literally change the world for the better.

But looking away from the darkness, and thus keeping it unconscious, is what the darkness itself depends upon for its existence, for as we unconsciously react (as compared to consciously respond) to the darkness by looking away, we are investing the darkness with power over us.

On the other hand, we create genuine peace, not by turning away from the darkness out of fear, but by becoming instruments through which the radiant light of consciousness shines on the darkness, so as to dispel its apparent power over us. This is the new revolution, and you can become a part of it..right now!

Virato is editor and publisher of Asheville Magazine http://ashevillemagazine./com and host of VIRATO LIVE! broadcast Saturdays, 10 AM to 1 PM on 880 The Revolution in Asheville, and http://viratolive.com world-wide.

Virato welcomes comments to this column.

Send to Virato, PO Box 17397, Asheville, NC 28816.

His e-mail is virato@mindspring.com.