A whiskey, perhaps?

Leaked Photos Show U.S. Soldiers Posing with Dead Afghan Civilians

The U.S. Army has issued an apology after the German news magazineDer Spiegel published a series of photographs that appear to show U.S. soldiers posing with the corpse of a civilian in Afghanistan. The photos are graphic and have been compared to the pictures that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In one photograph, a U.S. soldier is seen smiling as he posed with the bloodied and partially naked corpse. Another photo shows a solider holding the head of the Afghan man. The soldiers in the photographs are on trial for forming a secret "kill team" in Afghanistan that murdered unarmed Afghan civilians at random and collected body parts. The photographs were entered as evidence into the trial but were not meant to be seen by the public.

When I read stuff like this it makes me embarrassed to be an American.

America is not broke

MICHAEL MOORE: America is not broke. Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe, so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich. 

Right now, this afternoon, just 400 Americans—400—have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Let me say that again. And please, someone in the mainstream media, just repeat this fact once. We’re not greedy; we’ll be happy to hear it just once. Four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals, 400 little Mubaraks, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of 2008, now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined.

[This] is a class war on the people,. I think that the whole world has been inspired by what happened in Tunisia and in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. And while their problems are different than ours, the spirit is the same. And we need a pro-democracy movement in this country, badly, right now.
If people don’t understand by now the level of this war—and it is a war, it is a class war on the people of this country by those in power and the tools that they have bought and paid for. It really is a new day. 

          If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest   with what you know in your heart to be true. But I can see why people don’t want to even think about this. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this republic. And until this past month here in Madison, Wisconsin, the rest of us, until then, have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

Now, just like your soon-to-be ex-governor, I have nothing more than a high school education.  And here’s what I learned: money doesn’t grow on trees—unless it’s a palm tree. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need. And guess what. That creates more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system, an educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, thinkers, the people who will come up with the next great idea for this planet. And those ideas create jobs, and the jobs produce tax revenue.

But the few who have the most money don’t want to pay their fair share of the taxes. They’d rather invest it in a gambling casino known as Wall Street, betting for or against the stock market or against your home mortgage. And the entire population suffers, because that wealth has been removed from circulation. What’s so cynical about this is that the very people who don’t pay their taxes crashed our economic system. They created the unemployment, which has caused less tax revenue, and states like Wisconsin have ended up with a so-called "budget crisis."

The nation—the nation is not broke, my friends. There’s lots of money to go around. Lots! Lots! It’s just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know—they know that they have committed crimes to make this happen. And they know—and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities. They’ve got their luxury jet that’s always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day, waiting for that day that they hope never comes.

To help prevent that day when people, the people, demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:

Number one, they control the message. By owning the media, they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day. This is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself. They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how a guy—how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president of the United States, and how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They—don’t fall for it! They will play these stories for you over and over and over again, all day long, so that the last thing you’ll want to do is upset the apple cart, because, yes, you—you, you, too—might be rich/president/Oscar winner some day. The message, though, is clear: keep you head down, keep your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat, be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

And here’s the second smart thing the wealthy have done. They’ve created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It’s their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers, or we will crash this economy straight into the ground! Crash it straight into the ground! There’s a word for that, isn’t there? Terrorism. It’s a form of terrorism, isn’t it? Fork it over, or it’s goodbye savings accounts. Fork it over, or it’s goodbye pensions. Fork it over, or it’s goodbye United States Treasury. Fork it over, or it’s goodbye jobs and homes and future.

Animal Rescue Efforts Continue in Japan

PETA Asia staffer Ashley Fruno—who has been in Japan working with Isabella Gallaon-Aoki from the local group Animal Friends Niigata since last Saturday—has witnessed tremendous devastation and heartbreak since arriving in the region. But she has also seen people courageously putting their own lives at risk in order to safeguard their animal companions, and aid workers going above and beyond their mission to recover human bodies by saving animals who have miraculously survived the earthquake and tsunami. This is Ashley's most recent update from the hardest hit areas of Japan:

Thursday night, Isabella received a call from a local veterinarian who said that he had some leads on where animals in need of rescue might be. He was willing to help out in any way that he could, but he was unable to leave his house because of the gas shortage.

We went to some of the devastated areas and saw our first sign of life in the debris—a feral cat hiding among the rubble. We were unable to catch her but left her food. We checked on many houses with doghouses outside, but there were no dogs to be found. We also checked out two pet stores, one of which had no animals in sight and the other, a store that sold only birds, was almost reduced to a pile of rubble. We searched through the cages and debris, but were unable to find any live birds. Most of the cages were smashed, so the birds who were able to escape probably flew away, and those who were trapped likely drowned. We found the bodies of five birds in one cage alone. 

Friday morning, we visited Sendai's city animal shelter and offered assistance. It has had an influx of animals as well as many reports of missing animals. Fortunately, it is not full yet and will continue to take in lost and abandoned animals. The animal shelter has adequate supplies now but will contact us if more are needed. It will also likely need the help of Isabella's shelter to take in animals when it eventually fills to capacity. Shelter workers said that the phone line was just restored, so they know that the onslaught is coming as many people with animals have been unable to call.

Shelter officials mentioned that a soldier found a cat when he was recovering human bodies. The cat was terrified and hiding in a cat bed. The soldier brought him to the animal shelter, bed and all, and the cat will be put up for adoption if his guardians don't claim him.

We spent the rest of the day at evacuation centers handing out pet food and asking for leads on animals who had been abandoned. One evacuation center was housing 10 dogs, and some of the evacuees reportedly had cats at home they were checking on, so we left a huge supply of food.

One of the center coordinators told us a touching story about his Akita named Shane. When the man heard the tsunami warning, he rushed to warn his neighbors after letting Shane free in the yard. He tried to get back to his house to get Shane, but the tsunami was rapidly approaching, and he was forced to go to the school on higher ground. He said he had given up hope of seeing Shane alive again. But six hours later, one of the people staying in the center said that they saw a dog outside. The man went to look, and it was Shane! The dog had never been to the school before, but somehow, his instincts lead him there. Shane had managed to swim through chest-high water to be reunited with his guardian. The man took us to Shane, who was staying at his house, which is now dry. Shane must have clung to debris, as he had cuts on both his elbows. We instructed the guardian on how to clean Shane's wounds and gave him some ointment. We left fuel with the veterinarian, and he will return to check on Shane and provide him with antibiotics.

Shane being examined by a veterinarian after finding his way back to his guardian, who had to leave him behind during the tsunami.

   

The veterinarian will serve as the "mobile vet" for Sendai. Isabella is going to keep him supplied with food, and the World Veterinary Association representative we have been working with will give him medication and other supplies. He plans to visit all the local evacuation centers distributing food and administering veterinary care to animals in need.

Recovery from this disaster is going to take months, if not years. People in the hardest hit areas will continue to need pet food and veterinary supplies for weeks to come, as will the animal shelters, which will also need to house animals until their homeless guardians are able to find somewhere to live. You can help by donating to PETA U.S.' Animal Emergency Fund, which provides grants to PETA Asia and other organizations doing rescue work.

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  The first member of an international animal rights group to reach the disaster area, PETA Asia-Pacific senior campaigner Ashley Fruno has been in Japan with Isabella Gallaon-Aoki of Animal Friends Niigata since taking the first flight to Tokyo after the airport opened on Saturday night.

  There are few signs of life in the hardest-hit areas, but Ashley and Isabella have encountered many citizens who have stayed in their badly damaged homes for days because many evacuation centers are not allowing companion animals inside. With countless people being forced to evacuate because of radiation fears and with animals being barred from many emergency shelters and flights out of the country, animal shelters like the one run by Isabella's group are being inundated with animals.

  
  
  

  

  
  

  In all their media interviews, Ashley and Isabella have been urging people never to leave their animals behind—if conditions aren't safe for humans, they aren't safe for animals either.

  In addition to pitching in at the badly overtaxed Niigata shelter, Ashley has been providing food to animals left behind by evacuees as well as to animals whose guardians are having a hard time getting supplies because of long lines of hundreds of people waiting to get into stores. She is also working with local veterinarians to rescue and care for the few surviving animals they are able to find.

  Here's what Ashley has to say about her rescue efforts near the epicenter of the earthquake:

  The tsunami ripped through the region with such force that cars were smashed into houses, debris was swept for miles through rice fields, and entire families drowned in their homes. In the hardest hit areas, we saw no animal life whatsoever. We did see some paw prints in the mud at one point, but they didn't lead anywhere, and we could not find any animals nearby.

  When we first arrived in Sendai, gasoline lines stretched for miles and hundreds of people were lined up outside supermarkets to gather whatever supplies they could from the nearly bare shelves. We came upon a woman carrying her dog, a young sheltie who was terrified and stressed by the earthquake and aftershocks and the chaos that ensued. Tears came to the woman's eyes as she told us that she had risked her life for three days while staying in her still-shaking house because the evacuation center would not allow her to take her dog with her. She had finally been able to take her dog to a family member's home in an area of the city that had not been hit by the tsunami.

  

  
  We spent several hours searching for the two dogs who appeared in ahighly publicized You Tube video. One of the dogs appeared to be sick or injured, and his friend was protecting him. Someone gave us a tip as to where they might be, but it appeared to be inaccurate, as it seemed unlikely that anyone could have survived in the named area. We were relieved to learn later that both dogs had been rescued—the healthier dog is now in a shelter, and the sick dog is in a veterinary clinic.In all their media interviews, Ashley and Isabella have been urging people never to leave their animals behind—if conditions aren't safe for humans, they aren't safe for animals either.

  Ashley and Isabella continue to visit the worst-affected areas in search of animals who need help, and they remain in touch with the volunteer relief center, city office, and prefecture office, which plans to set up a temporary shelter for animals in the northern part of the city. Ashley reports that the most pressing issue now is finding temporary housing for animals whose families are homeless or who have been forced to evacuate.

  You can help by sending a polite e-mail or fax to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and asking the U.S. Department of State to allow U. S. nationals to take their animal companions with them when they evacuate Japan. You can also help fund Ashley's work and other rescue work by donating toPETA U.S.' Animal Emergency Fund, which provides grants to organizations that do rescue work, including our affiliate PETA Asia-Pacific.

  
  

human warfare

To sane human beings, war, not to mention permanent war, is madness. But to the madmen who control America, wars that reap massive profits are normal. Madmen do not pity the suffering, do not empathize with others’ pain that they cause. Cold to the misery of others, immune to reason and conscience, they are a strange lot, these dispensers of death.

James Connolly, the Irish socialist leader who was executed by the British in 1916, said:

"It would be well to realize that the talk of ‘humane methods of warfare,’ of the ‘rules of civilized warfare,’ and all such homage to the finer sentiments of the race are hypocritical and unreal, and only intended for the consumption of stay-at-homes. There are no humane methods of warfare, there is no such thing as civilized warfare; all warfare is inhuman, all warfare is barbaric; the first blast of the bugles of war ever sounds for the time being the funeral knell of human progress. What lover of humanity can view with anything but horror the prospect of this ruthless destruction of human life. Yet this is war: war for which all the jingoes are howling, war to which all the hopes of the world are being sacrificed, war to which a mad ruling class would plunge a mad world."

Over time, this “mad ruling class” loses the very qualities of love, kindness and empathy that make us human. Like inhuman monsters they become, these executors and guardians of an equally inhumane system of corporate capitalism, destroying all that humanity holds dear and sacred.

Those who are mad with power will never voluntarily relinquish, nor surrender to even the most eloquent and passionate appeals.

http://www.stopthesewars.org/

Help Animals in Japan!

Following the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the threat of nuclear disaster there is imminent. In response, the U.S. Department of State has started evacuating U.S. nationals. Once again, just as we saw in Egypt, evacuees are being denied the right to take their animal companions with them. In fact, the official policy of the State Department is that it does not evacuate animal companions. This leaves the already stressed and terrified evacuees with a heart-wrenching decision: Leave their beloved animal companions behind or stay in Japan and risk their own lives to protect the nonhuman members of their families.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that "a lack of plans and resources to evacuate 'incidental' pets with their owners has been known for decades to be a primary reason why citizens will refuse to evacuate in the face of imminent life-threatening danger." Unfortunately, when it comes to disasters, people who love their animals often pay with their own lives.

PETA's rescue team has been on the ground from the onset of the disaster and just sent this update: "We're at the Sendai city animal holding facility where they're trying to take in as many animals as possible from people who have had to leave them behind. A soldier brought in a cat he found while searching for humans. … They've given us directions to areas where they think animals have been abandoned. … We do think there may be animals who are alive and in jeopardy because their guardians have been evacuated."

Please contact the State Department today. Urge officials to allow evacuees from Japan to take their animal companions with them and ask the department to permanentlychange its policy by mandating the evacuation of pets with people from disaster areas. Remind officials that the protection of animals is one of the U.S.' most deep-seeded values.

Speak Up for Stressed, Injured Sharks

PETA often hears of the black-tipped reef sharks confined in display tanks at Pet Extreme stores, a pet store chain in California. According to patrons, these captive sharks incessantly bump into the glass walls of their barren tanks, resulting in chronic injuries. Pet Extreme made the compassionate decision not to feature captive sharks in its new stores, but sharks at existing locations are still suffering.

Sharks are sensitive animals who, in the wild, roam freely for miles in the ocean with others of their own kind. In captivity, they often exhibit neurotic behaviors because of unhappiness and stress, including repetitively swimming into the sides of their tanks. Confinement also deprives them of the opportunity to engage in natural behaviors, such as foraging for food, choosing mates, raising their young, exploring the reefs, and cavorting freely with family members.

Please contact Pet Extreme President Matt Swanson at matt.swanson@petextreme.comand General Manager Joe Perkins at joe.perkins@petextreme.com and thank them for not placing sharks in new stores. Politely urge them to allow the sharks in existing stores to be rehabilitated and released to a sanctuary or species-appropriate facility where their needs can be better met.

Spread the Chaos from Capitol to Capital

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Since February 15, the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin has been at the center of a storm of popular protest against proposed austerity measures including anti-union legislation. Hundreds of people occupied the building until March 3, touching off other actions around the state, including an ongoing university occupation in Milwaukee that began March 2.

On March 9, while Senate Democrats were absent in protest, Wisconsin’s Republican Senators passed a bill stripping public-sector unions of collective bargaining rights. In response, thousands returned to the capitol building, forcing open windows and pushing past state patrolmen to reenter and occupy it. Police eventually gave up attempting to control the crowds, and the announcement went out that they would not remove demonstrators from the building despite the court order that had forced the end of the previous occupation. At the high point on Wednesday evening, several thousand people filled the first three floors of the building entirely; after midnight, a few hundred still remained, despite the usual pleas from authoritarian organizers for people to leave.

Unions are legally prohibited from calling for a general strike, but there has been much talk of striking. In any case, a series of protests are planned for the next several days. In addition to this list of demonstrations Thursday morning, Thursday evening a flash mob is planned for the university library in Madison at 10 pm, Saturday farmers will drive their tractors into Madison in protest, and it’s rumored that teaching assistants will go on strike on Monday when the state contract with the Teaching Assistants’ Association expires.

Events are still unfolding in Wisconsin, and may yet escalate further. But we can already draw some conclusions from them, which can guide us in the months ahead–for Wisconsin is surely only the first of many states that will see public outrage over austerity measures.

The role that the capitol building has played in Wisconsin’s protest movement shows the importance of establishing a public relationship to physical sites that can serve as social centers during upheavals. Just as university occupations served as nerve centers during the December 2008 uprising in Greece, the capitol building offered a focal point for demonstrators to build up momentum over a period of weeks, and a space to congregate in response to new developments.

There are several other important points to make here. First, however devious the Republican Senators’ machinations, the bill was passed by democratic process, the same way countless other bills are passed. Those who protest against it are essentially proclaiming that representative democracy has failed them: they are asserting that there is more legitimacy in angry people occupying the capitol building than there is in Senators doing what they were elected to do. As anarchists, we wholeheartedly agree–workers deserve access to the resources currently being hoarded by capitalists regardless of what goes on in voting booths or politicians’ offices. The question is whether the movement will adopt this position outright, or remain mired in the contradictions of claiming to pose a democratic opposition to the democratic process.

Second, this is not simply a question of politicians being mean: from the capitalist perspective, these austerity measures really are unavoidable. The state budget director claims that Wisconsin faces a two-year budget shortfall of $3.6 billion—for comparison, that’s more than three times what the Canadian government spent for security at last summer’s fully militarized G20 summit. As far as the politicians are concerned, that money really does have to come from somewhere, whether from higher taxes or government cuts. Indeed, elsewhere in the US Democrats are proposing similar measures for their own states. This may legitimately break their hearts, but they see no other way.

From our perspective, of course, all this is despicable nonsense. Corporate magnates are sitting on the biggest fortunes in the history of the world. The net worth of just one of the planet’s 1210 billionaires—let’s say Bill Gates—could pay off a budget shortfall over fifteen times the size of the one in Wisconsin; distributed among Wisconsin’s 5.6 million residents, that would be $10,000 each. The problem is not that there’s no money—at this point money is simply created by the Federal Reserve whenever they choose—but that the vast majority of it is held hostage by a few rich people who don’t give a damn what happens to anyone else. If this is even causing trouble for governments, which work hand in glove with capitalists, that just shows the magnitude of the crisis.

Protesters inside the capitol building, 11 pm, March 9.

There’s another way to say this: capitalism has reached its limits and can only produce one crisis after another—war, recession, bailouts, austerity measures. Politicians are being honest when they say they see no other way, but only because they’re not willing to consider the possibility that the system itself is the problem. It’s up to us to point the way to another social system that could distribute wealth and power more sensibly.

In this context, it’s a mistake to expect a little protesting to achieve immediate results. Even if we manage to stop one wave of cutbacks and rollbacks, a thousand more assaults will follow. The state literally can’t back down—the politicians have nowhere to go. So rather than focusing on achieving “realistic” goals, such as blocking a particular budget or bill, we have to think bigger. How do we build a long-term movement that can fight against capitalism itself? How do we approach these protests as the starting point for the savage, years-long struggle that undoubtedly awaits?

Those considerations make it particularly dispiriting to come across attitudes like the one expressed by Wisconsin teacher Peggy Kruse, quoted as saying, “Most teachers are more than happy to take the 18% pay cut, to do anything that will help get the state back and running. We’re most concerned about the loss of collective bargaining rights.”

In other words, Kruse is willing to concede anything, so long as she retains her right to concede. Let Bill Gates keep his $56 billion while we get pay cuts or pink slips—just don’t touch the illusion that we choose this state of affairs!

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Accepting defeat in advance in this way goes along with a blind faith in “peaceful protest.” Signs in Wisconsin read “FIGHT LIKE AN EGYPTIAN,” but Egyptian protesters burned down police stations. Neither “peaceful” protests nor more assertive ones are likely to bring about the immediate repeal of the bill passed March 9–so questions about how disobedience plays to the media or affects the prospects of the Democrats are beside the point. The question, once more, is what will catalyze a fierce new movement that can go beyond single-issue defensive measures to push for a fundamental shift in the social order.

 

Anything the movement accomplishes, it will accomplish in defiance of the authorities, in defiance of would-be leaders who would tame and direct it, in defiance of union bureaucrats who don’t dare call for a general strike even as they are stripped of all power.

Thus far, everything that has given vitality to the movement in Wisconsin has come out of a spirit of rebellion. Those who broke into the capitol building the evening of March 9 did so in defiance of the court order that had concluded the previous occupation. In this light, it is particularly embarrassing that certain authoritarian organizers would enter the building illegally just to tell people to leave it politely. If police did not arrest or remove demonstrators, it was not because the demonstrators had the right to be in the building—police beat and murder people with no justification on a regular basis—but because the demonstrators have mobilized enough power to force the authorities to back down; politeness and obedience can only detract from this leverage. Anything the movement accomplishes, it will accomplish in defiance of the authorities, in defiance of would-be leaders who would tame and direct it, in defiance of union bureaucrats who don’t dare call for a general strike even as they are stripped of all power.

Some of the protesters understand this already. The chants of “OCCUPY!” and “GENERAL STRIKE!” that echoed in the capitol building Wednesday night recall the chants of more militant and deeply rooted overseas anti-austerity movements. As the conflicts generated by capitalist crises intensify, anarchists can expect to be outdone by other working and unemployed people.

What can you do to take a side in this struggle? If a general strike really does take off, that means—in the words of our comrades—NOBODY AND NOTHING WORKS. If you are in or near Wisconsin, you can support a strike by interrupting business as usual: calling in sick to work, occupying buildings, blocking streets. Look for ways you can connect with others in the process—what you can do on your own is not nearly as important as how your efforts become infectious.

The most important question of all is how to spread the action beyond the capitol. The capitol symbolizes “democracy,” which is to say top-down control. But capitalism is not simply maintained in government buildings. Initiatives like the university occupation in Milwaukee are important in that they offer a model for how to expand the terrain of conflict. Rather than everyone descending upon the capitol to be mere faces in a mass, people should go wherever they will be most effective proportionate to their numbers. An occupation of 50 people in La Crosse could have ten times the impact of 50 more people joining an existing occupation in Madison.

It’s also crucial to expand the issues beyond legislation affecting unions and state employees. Spontaneous high school walkouts already set a precedent for this in February, connecting the proposed cutbacks to the alienation of young people who have not yet even been thrown at the mercy of the job market. This isn’t just about government cutbacks or union rights—it is above all about self-determination. If you don’t have a union job or a state salary, if you’re unemployed or precariously employed, you’re already affected by the same conditions the Republicans in the Wisconsin government hope to intensify.

To say this once more, we shouldn’t evaluate efforts according to how effective they are in immediately achieving changes in legislation, or for that matter how many people they draw to rallies. The real question is their content: do they create new relationships between people, new ways of relating to material goods? Do they demonstrate values that point beyond capitalism? Do they produce new momentum, new ways of fighting, new unruliness?

If you live far outside Wisconsin, take this as a warning shot; don’t be caught off guard when the same things occur where you live. Think about how you can prepare so you’ll be ready to push things further when the window of opportunity opens up. This is not a fluke, but the first signs of a long war finally beginning in the United States.

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Biggest full moon in 19 years this Saturday.

On the 19th of March the full moon will reach a point called the ‘lunar perigee’ - the point in the lunar cycle when the moon is closest to Earth. This time around the perigee will be the closest one to earth since 1992, at a distance of 221,567 miles.The full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter in the sky, especially when it rises on the eastern horizon at sunset or is provided with the right atmospheric conditions.

Be on the lookout fellow stargazers

The Synchronicity Principle

We have some notion of the tendency of events to cluster around a moment in time, as evidenced by folk sayings like, "Good things (or accidents) happen in threes," etc. This only exists as a superstitious kind of popular awareness. Nevertheless, it has long been evident that there is a tendency for several scientists at the same time to make the same discovery completely independently. And, in histories of science, one can observe that there is a tendency for certain ideas and inventions to crop up in different places at the same time. Or, on a more mundane level, one has been known to wonder why the most needed library book is always the one already checked out.

Although a synchronistic point of view would seem to fly in the face of "scientific method," designed to support the value of statistical truth and predict cause and effect, the principle was strongly validated by the micro-physicist Werner Heisenberg's discovery in 1937. In the proof of his Uncertainty Principle, which still stands, Heisenberg demonstrated that, in the realm of sub-atomic particles, everything has an influence on everything else, including the perceiver's influence on what is perceived. This is another way of saying that everything that happens in a given situation at a given time is related to and participates with everything else. So, as far as we know now, there is no such thing as "scientific objectivity," statistical probabilities notwithstanding. As Jung put it, "Every process is partially or totally interfered with by chance, so much so that under natural circumstances a course of events absolutely conforming to specific laws is almost an exception."

In his fascinating book, New Directions in the I Ching, mathematician Larry Schoenholtz points out that there are several scientific theories that seem to validate the synchronicity theory: "Since I have mentioned the connection of synchronicity with the better-known theories of mainstream physics, I shall mention other parallels as well. The phenomenon of radioactive decay has been particularly baffling from the causal viewpoint. The spontaneous disintegration of certain atoms through radioactive emission is an event for which modern physics cannot provide an answer."

But it is quite in keeping with a synchronistic view of things. No less a figure than the physicist, Sir James Jeans says of this mystery, "Radioactive break-up appeared to be an effect without a cause, and suggested that the ultimate laws of nature were not even causal." If we add to the radioactivity puzzle such related puzzles as are found in the quantum theory, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and most of the tenets cited in Einstein's general theory of relativity, an impressive case can be made for incorporating the synchronicity principle into mainstream physics. When the unified field theory is worked out to the bone -- the evidence here, too, is mounting steadily -- and the entire clockworks of the cosmos can be brought under a set of unifying equations, this will be the final touch for bringing the synchronicity principle into full popularity among scientists.

The application of synchronicity is based on the strategy that looking for the meaning in coincidental events is more pragmatic than striving to predict things according to notions of causality, surmised from statistical records. Perhaps ancient oriental scientists, who lacked our record keeping technology, found it easier to realize this and devised the Book of Changes to put their observations to work. By using the magic of numerical chance within the context of an ingenious system of archetypal readings, they claimed they were able to follow the convoluted patterns of how things tend to go together. Maybe now, using a personal computer, we can take advantage of their prescience in a way that honors the best of both worlds

To be clear, we’re not certain that capitalism is about to collapse. However, we’re convinced that it is doomed–such a volatile and destructive system cannot possibly last forever–and that it is entering a new phase of crisis. All the old peace treaties are coming to an end: unions have been outflanked by globalization, while the Fordist compromise of higher wages for obedient workforces has given way in the course of the transition to a service-based economy. These peace treaties were not simply ways to pacify resistance movements–they also served to perpetuate capitalism itself. Without the higher wages won by the old labor movement, for example, consumers can’t afford to keep rates of profit up for capitalists. Consequently, at the moment of its worldwide triumph, capitalism has run out of ways to expand, heralding a new period of instability. The next several years will surely be marked by more upheavals like the ones in Greece and Egypt; these may even reach the United States. It is really an attempt to cast a spell, to convey a vote of no confidence in capitalism in hopes that it will be infectious. If capitalism is indeed entering a period of crisis, anarchists must not miss this opportunity to spread a vision of an alternative. It is precisely before the upheavals that we can do this most effectively: people’s idea of what is possible can change very quickly in the midst of turmoil, but their idea of what is desirable often changes much more slowly. If we miss this opportunity, we may see yet another phase of revolutionary struggles fought merely for “better democracy”–wasting an opportunity that will not come again for a generation. Therefore, we invite you to join us in covering the walls of North America with posters like this, and to brainstorm ways to escalate the conflict that point towards real liberation.

Raise Up

Higher Level of Consciousness

Like most ancient cultures, the Mayans were sophisticated astronomers, astrologers and mystics. They knew that the source of our power on Earth came from the Sun, Moon and the center of our galaxy. The Long Count calendar, which is being reset on December 21, 2012, measures precise alignments of our solar system with our galaxy that only happens approximately every 26,000 years. Actually, these precise alignments have been happening for the last 50 years or so. We have seen the accelerated progress in that last 50 years.

The Mayan calendar is quite fascinating to visualize. Imagine a series of odometers in your car that measure different distances independent of each other. Then one day, all three of odometers reset at the same time. That's what's happening with the Mayan calendar, only they are resetting based on lengths of time, not distance. The Mayan calendar doesn't just measure the days and years, it measures the cycles of time -- Ages -- Epochs in history, and this one is ending.

If you're like most people, the idea of "endings" leaves you with a little bit of fear. We don't want things to end. It is part of human behavior that we will often cling to things that are familiar, even if they are bad for us.

What if instead, 2012 was the end of suffering, darkness and ignorance? Would you still be afraid? In order for a new age of light to dawn, the people and structures that perpetuate suffering, darkness and ignorance will be threatened. That is what we are seeing now. The unsustainable structures in the world are crumbling and we are awakening to higher possibilities.

For example, we have known for years that one day we will run out of oil, yet we've done nothing about it -- producing gas guzzling cars, Humvees, etc. Well, now we must and we will. We will develop a new paradigm of energy consumption that is sustainable.

These type of massive changes are what 2012 refers to. It is an ascension to a higher level of consciousness, but it's not going to happen magically. We will have to work hard and clean up the messes we've created in order to install the new paradigm.

The ancient Mayans knew these days would come, because they were astronomers and astrologers and knew the mystical connection between us and the universe we inhabit. We have lost this mystical connection amidst the world of gadgets and toys. Reawakening to the truth about the Sun, Moon, Earth and universe we inhabit is a large part of understanding the global shifts happening now.