We are living in exceedingly dangerous times. A decade ago, few of us expected this turn of events. With the end of the nuclear standoff between the United States and Soviet Union, millions of people felt enormous relief, believing that the nuclear arms race was giving way to a new era of peace.

A liberating and comforting thought at the time, but subsequent events showed it to be wishful thinking.

How did so many get it so wrong?

The end of the Cold War was marked by the collapse of only one – the Soviet Union – of the two “superpowers,” which had dominated world politics for nearly half a century. The other “superpower” – the United States – of course remained, and morphed overnight into the “Big Dog.”

For the first time in a half-century, policy makers in Washington looked across the oceans and saw no single state or even combination of states that could effectively balance its power or deter its actions.

This basic alteration in the structure of power set the stage for a dangerous new turn in the world, but what was of decisive importance in bringing this about was the ascendancy of the most right-wing sections of transnational capital in American political life over the past decade. Had the extreme right wing not grabbed all the main levers of power, culminating with the theft of the White House in 2000, it is extremely doubtful that our government would be pursuing such a dangerous foreign policy.

And since Sept. 11, the “Big Dog” in the White House has turned into a pit bull. Its teeth are bared and the blood of innocents has been spilled – first in Afghanistan and more recently in Iraq. And it’s thirsting for more.



Might doesn’t make right

The grossly lopsided war against Iraq was illegal, unjust, and unnecessary. Had diplomatic means been pursued, no blood would have been spilled; no lives would have been needlessly lost. And we should not give an inch on this point for Bush would like to turn his preemptive strike into a legitimate and universally accepted norm of inter-state relations in this century.

In fact, with the U.S. military coming up empty in their efforts to find weapons of mass destruction, sensible people are asking: Was the war based on a lie? So far it seems as if it was.



New terrain of struggle

The terrain and conditions of the struggle for peace have shifted now. Regrouping among the peace forces is understandably taking place and new tasks are coming to the fore.

Of immediate importance is the struggle against the U.S. occupation. With each passing day, the self-proclaimed liberators are showing themselves as colonizers and empire builders.

Shooting protesters, maneuvering its puppets into positions of political and economic power, handing over multi-billion dollar contracts to corporations in its political orbit, securing control over Iraqi oil, turning temporary military bases into permanent ones, and elbowing out the United Nations in the post war construction process are symptomatic of an occupation that is getting nasty and coercive.

What is more, it tells us that the Bush administration is not going to champion democracy in Iraq. Why would an administration that is so quick to severely restrict democratic rights in our own country do any less in Iraq?

This increasingly volatile situation should compel the American people to say: End the occupation, bring out the troops and bring in the UN, and no reprisals against the democratic forces in Iraq, including the communists.

Another task for the peace movement is to prevent any further U.S. aggression against sovereign states. While threats against Syria have toned down, the most important question isn’t: Will Bush order an attack on another country? Instead, the main questions are: Who will be the next target? When will it happen? And will it “accidentally” coincide with Bush’s election campaign?

It is entirely plausible that the drumbeats of war will sound loudest as we get closer to the November elections next year, especially if the economy continues to weaken.

In any event, Bush’s policy of unending war makes imperative that the congressional bill sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) that prohibits pre-emptive strikes receives the most vigorous support.

It would be naive to suggest that the passage of this bill will be easy. Bush and his team will fight it ferociously. They are well aware that congressional law carries substantially more force than international law and world public opinion in the present scheme of things. Nevertheless this is a winnable struggle. In a recent public opinion poll more than half of the respondents opposed the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes.

Another obvious task is to organize against the mounting costs of war and their negative impact on the people’s needs and U.S. economy. One economist said that the occupation alone could cost 0 billion dollars. And to this you have to add billions more for new weaponry and the stationing of troops in more than a hundred bases around the world.

And when you combine all that with the tax cut of 0 billion you have to conclude that the war abroad has as its domestic counterpart in a war at home. One writer said that Bush administration is trying to rollback the 20th century. And he’s right.

Where does Bush stand on nutritional programs for 10 million children? Against. On constitutional rights – against. On the right to organize into unions – against. On affirmative action – against. On prohibitions to racial profiling – against. On measures to eliminate poverty which is growing among Black children – against. On environmental protections – against. On extending unemployment benefits – against. On protecting pension plans – against. On immigrant rights – against. On abortion rights – against. On universal health care – against. On Medicare and Medicaid – against. On gay and disabled rights – against. On low income housing – against. On aid to our cities and rural communities – against. And on funding public education – against.

Never have we witnessed such a brutal offensive against peace and people’s needs, but growing all people’s unity opens up new avenues to build a majority movement for peace and progress.



Abolition of weapons of mass destruction

Another task of the peace movement is to call for the abolition of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. In the 20th century, the world was lucky to avoid a nuclear war engulfing all of humanity. In this century we may not be so lucky. The Non-Proliferation treaty never intended to institutionalize a two-tier system whereby a few powers possess huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the rest either disarm or never acquire them. For disarmament to be a force for peace and stability it has to be enforceable and universal.

For those who say it is unrealistic, we reply that there is no alternative, that the elimination of weapons of mass destruction is necessary for humankind’s survival.

A final task facing peace activists is to connect the struggle for a peaceful world to the defeat of Bush and his right wing Congressional counterparts in the 2004 elections. For peace forces in our country to distance themselves from this struggle would be a fundamental mistake. Instead, they have to bring the issue of peace into every phase of the election process, beginning with the Democratic Party primaries.

Soundly thrashing Bush and the extreme right is the main way – and maybe the only way – to put brakes on the perilous direction in which the world is moving. As I said earlier, there is no counterweight on the global level to the power of U.S. imperialism. In fact, never in human history has there been such lopsidedness in the distribution of power among the major states.

In these circumstances the role of the American people grows exponentially. Never before has the fate of the world rested so heavily on the American people and the outcome of next year’s elections. Not in 1940, not in 1968, not in 1984.

All of this is a tall order for the peace movement. It could easily feel overwhelming. But we should remind ourselves that a movement has been born – worldwide in scope, spontaneous in character, and inclined towards action.

Despite the ebbing of mass protest actions, the mass sentiment that drove those marches hasn’t dissipated. It cuts across nearly every sector of our society, and especially the labor movement and the movements of the racially and nationally oppressed. Even sections of the ruling class – and we should not underestimate the importance of this – are at loggerheads with the Bush doctrine.

Now someone might be thinking: What about the public opinion polls? Bush’s ratings spiked some, but they reflect short-term moods and obscure deeper and contradictory thought patterns among the people. They don’t tell us how enthusiastic and invested people are in Bush’s war policies.

Peace is a deeply felt need among the American people. And it continues to amaze me how this sentiment bubbles to the surface despite the relentless demagoguery, lies and fear mongering, orchestrated by the Bush administration and media.

It provides the grounds on which to win wider sections of the people to struggle against the Bush doctrine, including many who supported the war.

To put it another way, turning people and politicians’ attitude to the Iraq war into a litmus test determining whom we can and can’t coalesce with as millions address new tasks in appreciably different conditions is counterproductive. The peace movement has to give both people and their elected representatives space to move into the peace camp where they belong.



Imagination

Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than intelligence.” The peace movement needs imagination in three directions. In one direction it has to visualize what the possible consequences and likely scenarios are if the world continues on its present course, including the possibility of nuclear war.

A second direction is to envision what rules, norms, institutions and alterations in the structures of power are necessary to preserve the peace. We are against Bush’s form of global governance, which is heavy on preemption, regime change, an unending arms race, and U.S. hegemony over every region and continent. It is a prescription for war, economic crisis, inequality, denial of democratic rights, terror attacks, more division in the world, and national insecurity.

But what is the alternative? Communists favor socialism – a society that would eliminate the economic and political pressures that generate exploitation, inequality, aggression, terror, and war – while at the same time creating the conditions for deepening democracy and extending the boundaries of human freedom.

But we are also realistic enough to know that socialism isn’t on the people’s agenda at this moment. So what is the people’s alternative to the Bush doctrine? This we have to answer and it will take political imagination.

A final challenge is to construct a mental picture of the class and social forces that have to be assembled in our country in order to reverse the present direction that we are moving in. In our view, it is a broad all people’s coalition at the core of which is labor, racially oppressed peoples and women. But it also extends it reach to every possible social grouping that is negatively affected by Bush’s policies.

Anything less will not have the muscle to out muscle Bush and his transnational corporate backers.

Our country is at a crossroads and we the people have to decide what road our nation takes, knowing full well that it could make all the difference in the world.

The choices are clear:

Will it be preemptive strikes or the non-use of force to settle differences?

Will it be regime change or respect for national sovereignty rights?

Will it be American military superiority or universal disarmament?

Will it be world domination or an equal place in the world community of nations with no special privileges?

Will it be narrowing of the boundaries of freedom and democracy or the expansion of them?

Will it be growing class, racial, and gender inequality or the empowering of the exploited and oppressed in every area of life?

Will it be harboring ill will, even hatred, for our neighbors or a deep belief that that every life is precious in this fragile and interdependent world?

Those of us in this room – and millions in our country and worldwide – have made our choices, but the verdict is still out as to where humanity will go.

But I am convinced that the people will do the right thing.



Sam Webb is the national chairman of the Communist Party USA. The following is excerpted from his speech given at the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo May Day banquet in New York City. To read the whole text go to www.cpusa.org

Originally published by the People’s Weekly World

www.pww.org

Microchip brain implants for prisoners, suspects, and soldiers (first)

by Leading Edge Research Group • Friday May 09, 2003 at 03:33 AM



"We must be ready with our security products when the demand for them becomes popular." The effect on the limbic system is to halt resistance to both authority and adaptation to novel changes in situation. A perfect tranquilizer device. Implants also serve as surveillance devices, making the implantee a walking-talking recorder of everyone he/she comes into contact with.

Implanting Those Identified as the Most Aggressive in our Society

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

The 2020 IBM Neural Chip Implant

Source: Leading Edge Research Group

http://www.trufax.org

Introduction

The document on this page is retyped exactly from the poor quality original received here at Leading Edge Research Group in August 1997. The original document had a fax annotation of August 6, 1996 and was stamped "Confidential", with a handwritten annotation at the bottom which read,"We understand the New Jersey prison system is presently using". The original fax was four pages in length. The document came into our possession synchronistically at the same time the correctional system of the U.S. is coming under scrutiny for draconian methodology. Are these guys a bunch of Nazis, or what? The parts colored in red have been done so in order to stress certain sentences and passages.

Our analysis of this alleged "whopper" indicates that in all probability such an implant would directly intefere with the function of the hippocampus, which is interesting because a lot of the ongoing interest in neuroscience has been with just that organ.

Interestingly, according to the Chinese scientific report on the effect of fluorides on the intelligence of children, it is also this same organ that is affected. The effect on the limbic system is to halt resistance to both authority and adaptation to novel changes in situation. A perfect tranquilizer device. Note that most sedative drugs are fluorinated compounds.

Implants and bleeding from the ears and nose...now who's doing a lot of those abductions and blaming all of them on alien factions.... Leading Edge Research Group http://www.trufax.org presents a disturbing document:

The IBM 2020 Neural Chip Implant

Intelli-Connection

A Security Division of IBM

1200 Progress Way

Armonk, New York 11204

October 20, 1995

LIMITED DISTRIBUTION ONLY

LEVEL 9 COMMUNICATION

2020 NEURAL CHIP IMPLANT

The control of crime will be a paramount concern in the 21st century. We must be ready with our security products when the demand for them becomes popular. Our Research and Development Division has been in contact with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the California Department of Corrections, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Massachusetts Department of Correction to run limited trials of the 2020 neural chip implant. We have established representatives of our interests in both management and institutional level positions within these departments.

Federal regulations do not yet permit testing of implants on prisoners, but we have entered into contractual agreements with privatized health care professionals and specified correctional personnal to do limited testing of our products. We have also had major successes with privately owned sanitariums with implant technology. We need, however, to expand our testing to research how effective the 2020 neural chip implant performs in those identified as the most aggressive in our society. Limited testing has produced a number of results.

In California, several prisoners were identified as members of the security threat group EME, or Mexican Mafia. They were brought to the health services unit at Pelican Bay and tranquilized with advanced sedatives developed by our Cambridge, Massachusetts laboratories. The implant procedure takes 60-90 minutes, depending upon the experience of the technician. We are working on a device which will reduce that time by as much as 60% [30 min].

The results of implants on eight prisoners yielded the following results:

Implants served as surveillance devices to monitor threat group activity. Implants disabled two subjects during an assault on correctional staff. Universal side effects in all eight subjects revealed that when the implant was set to 116 Mhz, all subjects became lethagic and slept on an average of 18-22 hours per day. All subjects refused recreation periods for 14 days during the 166 Mhz test evaluation. Seven out of eight subjects did not exercise, in the cell or out of the cell, and five out of eight of the subjects refused showers up to three days at a time. Each subject was monitored for aggressive activity during the test period and the findings are conclusive that seven out of eight subjects exhibited no aggression, even when provoked. Each subject experienced only minor bleeding from the nose and ears 48 hours after the implant due to initial adjustment. Each subject had no knowledge of the implant for the test period and each implant was retrieved under the guise of medical treatment.

It should be noted that the test period was for less than two months. However, during the period substantial data was gathered by our research and development team, which suggests that the implants exceeds expected results. One of the major concerns of Security and the R&D team was that the test subject would discover the chemical imbalance during the initial adjustment period and the test would have to be scrubbed. However, due to advanced technological development in the sedatives administered, the 48-hour adjustment period can be attributed to prescription medication given to the test subjects after the implant procedure. One of the concerns raised by R&D was the cause of the bleeding and how to eliminate that problem. Unexplained bleeding might cause the subject to inquire further about his "routine" visit to the infirmary or other health care facility. The security windfall from the brief test period was enormous. Security officials now know several strategies employed by the EME that facilitate the transmission of illegal drugs and weapons into correctional facilities. One intelligence officer remarked that while they cannot use the information they have in a court of law, they now know who to watch and what outside "connections" they have. The prison at Solidad is now considering transferring three subjects to Vacavillewhere we have our ongoing implant research. Our technicians have promised that they can do three 2020 neural chip implants in less than an hour. Solidad officials hope to collect information from the trio to bring a 14-month investigation into drug trafficking by correctional officers to a close.

Essentially the implants make the unsuspecting prisoner a walking-talking recorder of everyone he comes into contact with. There are only five intelligence officers and the commissioner of Corrections who actually know the full scope of the implant testing.

In Massachusetts, the Department of Correction has already entered into high-level discussions about releasing certain offenders into the community with the 2020 neural chip implants. Our people are not altogether against the idea, however, attorneys for Intelli-Connection have advised against implant technology outside strict control settings. Under the present governmental structure, our liability would be enormous. While we have a strong lobby in Congress and in various state legislatures favoring our product, we must proceed with the utmost caution on uncontrolled use of the 2020 neural chip. If the chip were discovered in use not authorized by law and the procedure tracted to us we could not endure for long the resulting publicity and liability payments.

Massachusetts' officials have developed an intelligence branch from their Fugitive Task Force Squad that would do limited test runs under tight controls with pre-release subjects. Corrections officials have dubbed these potential test subjects "the insurance group" (the name derives from the concept that the 2020 implant insure compliance with the law and allows officials to detect misconduct or violations without question).

A retired police detective from Charlestown, Massachusetts, now with the intelligence unit, has asked us to consider using the 2020 neural chip on hard core felons suspected of bank and armored car robbery. He stated, "Charlestown would never be the same; we'd finally know what was happening before they knew what was happening."

We will continue to explore community uses of the 2020 chip, but our company rep will be attached to all law enforcement operations with an extraction crew that can be on-site in two hours from anywhere, at anytime.

We have an Intell-Connection discussion group who is meeting with the Director of Security at Florence, Colorado's federal super maximum security unit. The initial discussions with the Director have been promising and we hope to have an R&D unit at this important facility within the next six months. Florence, Colorado has replaced Marion, Illinois as the federal prison system's ultra maximum security unit. Legislative and executive branch efforts continue to legalize the implant technology. (See Intelli-Connection Internal Memorandum No.15).

End communication ... 10/20/95

Distribution: Eyes Only: Project Group 7A.

(http://www.trufax.org/reports/2020.html)



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