Ten Signs of Hope

Fall 2007: Stand Up to Corporate Power

 

Stories of Action and Change You Didn't Hear About in 2006 and 2007. For the first time, Project Censored 2008 now highlights a new form of journalism: one that looks for the places where real change for the better is already underway. Here are their 10 featured stories...

 

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David Bohm: a seeker of reality

Conceived the applications of the Holographic Model:

 

"... Bohm's holographic metaphor has found fruitful application in brain physiology and human consciousness. Neurosurgeon Karl Pribram developed a model of the brain based on holographic principles (1971); Pribram was trying to understand various features of the brain, especially the observed result that the function of memory storage is not localized in the brain. Pribram's controversial holographic model accounts for seemingly mysterious properties of the brain such as the vast storage capacity, the imaging capability of the sensory system, and certain features of associative recall. Another striking application of the holographic model is in the spectrum of human consciousness. Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof (1985, 1988) has developed a cartography of human consciousness that summarizes his extensive research into nonordinary states of consciousness. He has noted a close correspondence between the holomovement and his research findings. More than thirty years of clinical research and observation have led Grof to the viewpoint that "each of us is everything." ..."

 

With respect to Buddhism and Physics:

"... The Tibetan Master Sogyal Rinpoche...has noted striking parallels between Bohm's model and the three kayas in Buddhist ontology.

"Could this possibly suggest that the role of meaning, as [Bohm] explains it, is somehow analogous to the Dharmakaya, that endlessly fertile, unconditioned totality from which all things rise? The work of energy, through which meaning and matter act upon one another, has a certain affinity to the Sambhogakaya, the spontaneous, constant springing forth of energy out of the ground of emptiness, and the creation of matter, in David Bohm's vision, has resemblances to the Nirmanakaya, the continuous crystallization of that energy into form and manifestation. . . The deepest parallel between David Bohm's ideas and the bardo teachings is that they both spring from a vision of wholeness." Bohm...himself sounds indistinguishable from a spiritual master at times: "When we come to light, we are coming to the fundamental activity in which existence has its ground. . . Light is the potential of everything. . . This ocean of energy could be thought of as an ocean of light"

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When Krishnamurti asked Bohm what is the point of the mystery, Bohm (Krishnamurti and Bohm 1987) gave the following succinct reply:

"Of the mystery? I think you could see it like this: that if you look into the field of thought and reason and so on, you finally see it has no clear foundation. Therefore, you see that "what is" must be beyond that. 'What is' is the mystery." ..."

[ More on the Lifework of David Bohm ]

Infoshop News: Before and Beyond Jena, by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Until several weeks ago, the name 'Jena' was doubtless unfamiliar to millions of people in the U.S., until the demonstrations around the case of the Jena 6 brought attention to the small Louisiana town.

But, before the case occurred, the name became known to hundreds (if not thousands) of young Blacks, who came to know, quite intimately, that Jena was just another word for racism, rape, violence, and humiliation.

After the ravages of Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and its surrounding areas, hundreds of imprisoned people were transported to the Jena Juvenile Justice Center, in Jena, Louisiana, a place that became their nightmare. The place was so medieval and tortuous in its treatment of young people, that it was severely criticized by a federal judge as a place where people were "treated as if they walked on all fours," before it was closed.

According to published reports put out by the groups Human Rights Watch and the NAACP-Legal Defense Fund, people arriving at JJJC were beaten, brutalized, harassed, and subjected to racist taunts by staff members there. This was after it was reopened in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

They were denied things allegedly required by the Constitution, like grievance forms, calls to family, or pen and paper.

They were treated like they were al-Qaeda, and this was Guantanamo -- this, in the country, and in many cases, the state of their births.

The Human Rights Watch and NAACP-LDF have tried to interest state officials in a meaningful investigation, but this has led to little more than lip service.

Although federal officials have reportedly announced their intention to investigate, it is equally doubtful that any real, serious investigation will emerge.

As for the media (except for some segments of the Black press), Jena was little more than a 1 day, or at best, a 3-day story.

Their coverage, such as it was, was little more than a platform to allow local Jenites to exclaim how they weren't racists, and that nooses are just 'pranks' used by youngins' to have a little fun.

As ever, there has been little attempt to look backwards into recent history, and now that the last Jena 6 accused is out on bail, little looking to the future as well.

How is it possible in the U.S. today, for people wearing KKK robes to always intone, "I'm not a racist?"

When viewing or listening to locals there, it was almost impossible to not hear the echoes of 50 years ago, when civil rights actions began to stir the South, that 'the problem' was, once again, "outside agitators", like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They were the problem, not 'our darkeys.'

Only with the not-too-subtle death threats from Klan-related groups have we seen that the nooses from the so-called 'white tree', which sparked much of the Jena phenomenon, was far more than boys being boys.

The Jena case didn't start with 6 young schoolboys.

It won't end with them.

The case stems from something deep and abiding in the American heart and soul.

And it lives in every state of the union -not just in Louisiana.

This shouldn't be the end of the movement; but the spark for more.

 

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Fortress of the Assassins

"...Only conjecture and myth remain to explain the origins of the Assassins' name. Some theories link the name to the drug hashish, supposedly taken before battle or as initiation into the cult. A more probable competing theory is that the name is derived from the name of their leader Hassan-i-Sabah, since "Hashshashin" literally means "followers of Hassan." The name itself was a derogatory term used by Europeans to describe the supposedly hashish-using sect. The term "assassin" most likely comes from a pet name Hassan had for his followers: Assassiyun, or “people who are faithful to the foundation of the faith.” The Assassins preferred to call themselves fedayeen. The word, Arabic for “one who is ready to sacrifice themselves for a cause,” was co-opted by groups in Palestine, Armenia, Iraq and Iran for their own organizations during numerous conflicts in the 20th century..."

 

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Consortiumnews: Bush's Global 'Dirty War'

By Robert Parry
October 1, 2007

George W. Bush has transformed elite units of the U.S. military – including Special Forces and highly trained sniper teams – into “death squads” with a license to kill unarmed targets on the suspicion that they are a threat to American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to evidence from recent court cases.

Though this reality has been the subject of whispers within the U.S. intelligence community for several years, it has now emerged into public view with two attempted prosecutions of American soldiers whose defense attorneys cited “rules of engagement” that permit the killing of suspected insurgents.

One case involved Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. who was acquitted by a U.S. military court in Baghdad on Sept. 28 in the murders of two unarmed Iraqi men – one on April 27 and the other on May 11 – because the jury accepted defense arguments that the killings were within the approved rules.

The Sandoval case also revealed a classified program in which the Pentagon’s Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop “bait” – such as electrical cords and ammunition – and then shoot Iraqis who pick up the items, according to evidence in the Sandoval case. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007]

(Sandoval was convicted of a lesser charge of planting a coil of copper wire on one of the slain Iraqis. He was sentenced to five months in prison and a reduction in rank but will be eligible to rejoin his unit in as few as 44 days.)

The other recent case of authorized murder of an insurgent suspect surfaced at a military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-September. Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution of an Afghani who was suspected of leading an insurgent group.

Though the Afghani, identified as Nawab Buntangyar, responded to questions and offered no resistance when encountered on Oct. 13, 2006, he was shot dead by Master Sgt. Troy Anderson on orders from his superior officer, Capt. Dave Staffel.

According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, an earlier Army investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been operating under “rules of engagement” that empowered them to kill individuals who have been designated “enemy combatants,” even if the targets were unarmed and presented no visible threat.

Yet, whatever the higher-ups approve as “rules of engagement,” the practice of murdering unarmed suspects remains a violation of the laws of war and – theoretically at least – would open up the offending country’s chain of command to war-crimes charges.

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By early 2005, as the Iraqi insurgency grew, an increasingly frustrated Bush administration reportedly debated a “Salvador option” for Iraq, an apparent reference to the “death squad” operations that decimated the ranks of perceived leftists who were opposed to El Salvador’s right-wing military junta in the early 1980s.

According to Newsweek magazine, President Bush was contemplating the adoption of that brutal “still-secret strategy” of the Reagan administration as a way to get a handle on the spiraling violence in Iraq.

“Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy [in El Salvador] to have been a success – despite the deaths of innocent civilians,” Newsweek wrote.

The magazine also noted that many of Bush’s advisers were leading figures in the Central American operations of the 1980s, including Elliott Abrams, who is now an architect of Middle East policy on the National Security Council.

In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the Guatemalan highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole villages, such as the slaughter committed by a U.S.-trained battalion against hundreds of men, women and children near the town of El Mozote in 1981....

 

 

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The Peyote Cult

by Paul Radin

from The Winnebago Tribe, pp. 340-78, ARBAE 37

[1925]

Peyote has never been a drug for thrill seekers. The small, hard cactus is difficult to obtain. It tastes vile, ingestion normally leads to painful vomiting, and the effects are more subtle than other psychedelics.

The Native American Peyote ceremony emerged at the turn of the 20th century, like the Ghost Dance, at a time when Native American culture was under much stress. It blended Christian and traditional beliefs, and used Peyote as a sacrament. The Peyote ceremony spread from the Southwest into the Plains and other culture regions. Participants reported a spiritual cleansing, and experienced healing effects, which may be the result of powerful natural antibiotics in Peyote.

This is one of the first ethnographic accounts of the Peyote ceremony. Paul Radin wrote this monograph, mostly consisting of first-hand accounts, as part of his 1925 ethnography of the Winnebago tribe, who live in Wisconsin. The Peyote 'Cult' did not die out as Radin thought it might, but grew into the Native American Church, which is still going strong today. This group fought the US legal system to get an exemption to use the cactus, which is a controlled substance, in their ceremonies.

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Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

Reports of unacceptable interrogation techniques led to a shake up in policy and staff at the Justice Department in 2004. After Alberto Gonzales' arrival, the public started hearing things had changed, but new reports claim that things remained the same -- or worsened.

 

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"A turning point in the legal and political organization of the Western world"

A New Form of State: War and Criminal Law

By introducing the concept of war into national law, the latest U.S. anti-terrorist law, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), produces a turning point in the legal and political organization of the Western world. It puts an end to a form of state that succeeded in “establishing peace internally and excluding hostility as a concept of law.”1 It is the constituent act of a new form of state that establishes war as a political relation between constituted authorities and national populations.

By means of the fight against terrorism, the concept of war is introduced into criminal law. The integration of hostility into the legal order is first carried out by administrative acts relative to foreigners and justified in the name of the state of emergency. The MCA incorporates the concept of war into the law permanently. At the same time, it modifies its area of application and its content. It allows the president of the United States to designate citizens and political opponents as enemies.

1. ‘Enemy Combatant’ or Enemy of the Government?
by Jean-Claude Paye

2. A System of Wholesale Denial of Rights
by Michael E. Tigar